Harry Potter and the Duel Monsters
by Kirbie
Summary: [HPxYGO] Ryou finds out Harry is his cousin and recieves an invitation to Hogwarts. Voldemort's found an old book that allows him to call duel monsters from the Shadow Realm. Chapter 11: Say Hello. [will be deleted soon, so do what you need to do with it.
1. Cousins

Notes: This is a crossover fic that I wrote in my spare time. I didn't really think it was good until I actually reread it. HP/YGO. After I wrote this, I read somebody's fanfic about how Ryou and Harry were cousins. I did _not _copy so please don't review saying I did. I wrote this chapter _before_ I read that fanfic, except ff.net's been so slow lately I haven't gotten a chance to post it. Basically, Ryou meets Harry, his cousin, and he goes to Hogwarts. Then someone unleashes Duel Monsters all over the school to attack a certain someone…

Disclaimer: I don't own Harry Potter or YuGiOh, they all belong to their respective creators.

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New Author's Notes: Not many main changes. I added a few sentences and conversations here and there, but nothing much important. I fixed the part where Harry was reading to Ryou from the letter because I thought it was awkward. The most important part is that I decided to take off Mai and Tea. I hardly use them anyway, and they were just forcing me to write them into a story that could do without them. So I took them off. If enough people want them back in though, I can put them back in again.

Chapter 1

Cousins

Ryou Bakura was stumbling about the airport, trying to figure out where his uncle and aunt were waiting for him. Actually, he could be considered extremely lost. His yami, who had grown very much less violent and could even be considered 'nice' now, was laughing at him inside his soul room.

~~Ryou, you can't even find your way around the airport?~~

Ryou mentally sighed. ~Yami, it's hard. I'd like to see _you_ do it.~

~~Just look for someone with hair like yours. Probably not quite so hard to miss.~~

~Yeah, you're right, Yami. Let's see here…~ Ryou did quite a bit of searching around the terminal until he spotted someone waving at him. 

"Ryou?" the man yelled.

Ryou somehow managed to lug his suitcase over and greet the man. "Hi," he said with a smile.

"Hey," the man said. "I'm really sorry but you can't stay with us. Your cousin Cynthia is having an orchestra festival all the way in Paris, and we can't exactly leave you at home alone. We're going to leave you with your other aunt and uncle, is that okay?"

"Fine," Ryou agreed. 

"My car's outside," he said. "It's just a quick ride, maybe ten minutes from here." Ryou nodded.

With his uncle's help he managed to drag his suitcase into the trunk of the car and settle in without a lot of trouble. The ride was uneventful.

His uncle finally turned into a street called Privet Drive. 

~~Strange name for a road.~~ his yami commented.

Ryou had to agree. His uncle let him out at number four. His other uncle and aunt were waiting for him inside. When he stepped out of the car they stared disapprovingly at him. 

Bakura growled inside his soul room. ~~What are they _looking_ at?~~

Ryou tried to mentally calm them down. ~Don't send them to the Shadow Realm, it'll give us away! Besides…it's probably just my hair.~

Bakura growled. ~~For Ra's sake what's wrong with your _hair_? I like it!~~

~Yami, not everybody has pure white hair.~

~~Well, why don't they?~~ his yami demanded.

Ryou mentally shrugged and cut off the link. His other uncle introduced himself as Uncle Vernon, his aunt introduced herself as Aunt Petunia.

"Your cousin's in the hall waiting for you," Uncle Vernon informed him disapprovingly. 

Ryou nodded. "Thank you," he said politely and dragged his trunk into the hallway. There, he stared at the person that was staring right back at him.

Ryou had suspected that his cousin didn't look like him, but this was outrageous. He had jet-black hair that stood up on all ends. It sort of reminded him of Yugi's multi-colored hair that seemed to defy all laws of gravity. His eyes were bottle green. He was skinny like Ryou but he wore baggy clothes that seemed to be too big for him.

Meanwhile, Harry was staring at Ryou. Unlike his unruly black hair, Ryou had snow-white hair that seemed to form a curtain over his head. His chocolate-brown orbs were innocent and caring. It definitely seemed like he liked the color white. He was wearing a clean white sweater and a pair of green pants. He recalled the letter that Professor Dumbledore had sent to him by owl a few days ago, telling him about the arrival of his wizard cousin. But Ryou certainly didn't look like wizarding material. In fact, he didn't even seem like he knew anything at all about magic.

Behind him, Aunt Petunia came in the door. "Show your cousin to his room," she nodded at Harry.

"My name's Ryou Bakura," Ryou said. 

Aunt Petunia nodded to show that she had heard and went into the kitchen, obviously to prepare dinner.

"Follow me," Harry motioned to Ryou. With his yami's help he carried his trunk up a flight of stairs and down a hallway to get to the guestroom. "Will you be all right?" he asked.

Ryou nodded. His yami was itching to get out of the Ring. "I'll be fine," he reassured his cousin.

"Oh, by the way, my name's Harry Potter," Harry introduced himself. Unlike most wizards, he didn't react in any way whatsoever. Not like Harry had expected him to. When he had first become a wizard, he hadn't even known about his fame, much less about anybody else. But nothing Harry had read had referred in any way to this white-haired youth. Leaving Ryou to settle in, he left to go to his room. He still had quite a bit of Hogwarts summer homework to finish. 

Once Harry had left, Ryou shut the door and let Bakura out of the ring. He stretched and growled, "It was cramped in there. I don't remember it being such a tight squeeze." 

Ryou nodded. "You must be outgrowing it," he offered as a suggestion. His yami looked at him like he was crazy. "What? It's the only solution I can think of," Ryou said.

"Whatever," the tomb robber said. "But I know for a fact that Millennium Items don't shrink. And the spirits inside them don't grow. Or at least I don't think we do…"

Ryou heard footsteps echoing in the hallway. ~Bakura, get back in the Ring! NOW!~

~~Why?~~

~Someone's coming, that's why!~ With a lot of complaints and groaning, his yami disappeared into the Millennium Ring. Ryou quickly stuffed it back underneath his shirt. It always attracted a lot of attention, being as old and fancy as it was.

But it was only his cousin Harry. "I'm going to my friend Ron's next week," he told Ryou. "Um…you can come too. It's a change to being in this old house with my grouchy aunt and uncle." What he didn't let Ryou know was that the letter from the headmaster had also told Harry to bring Ryou to the Weasleys' house. According to the letter, his cousin would be able to get to Diagon Alley that way, by Floo Powder. That way was a lot faster than taking the train for half the day, then entering by the Leaky Cauldron and finding just the right brick.

Ryou looked confused. "Uh, okay," he said. "Next week? When does term start?"

Harry frowned. "It should say in your letter," he hinted.

Ryou looked a little sheepish. "I never got a letter," he confessed.

Harry stared. "But-but then how can you be a wizard?" he blurted out.

Ryou stared right back at Harry. "I'm a _what_?"

"A wizard." Harry looked at Ryou who looked truly confused. He sighed. "Why would the headmaster tell me that my _wizard_ cousin was coming, and to take you to my _wizard_ friend, unless you _were_ a wizard?"

Ryou started apologizing. "Sorry," he said. "I didn't know. I thought it was just a normal boarding school."

Harry sighed. "Well, Professor Dumbledore wouldn't lie. And Hogwarts is incredibly efficient, Professor McGonagall wouldn't forget to send you a letter. Ryou, are you even listening?" he asked, seeing the blank look on his cousin's face.

Ryou pointed. "Uh…there's an owl at the window," he said sheepishly. "I was just wondering…weren't owls nocturnal?"

Harry brightened. "No, not necessarily. Not when they're being used to deliver mail." He opened the window for the owl, untied the letter from its leg, and ripped open the envelope. The owl hung around until Harry indicated that he did not want to respond.

Ryou looked at the owl and gave it a soft pat on the head. It hooted and flew off towards the rainbowish horizon.

Harry looked up and frowned. "That's strange. It says here that you're to start term as a fifth year with some of your friends. But no one's ever skipped four whole years at Hogwarts to my knowledge…unless they've got immense power…" Harry gave Ryou an odd look, but Ryou ignored it, or tried to at least.

"Does it mention which of my friends are going?" he asked.

Harry scanned over the letter. "Says here…Yugi Motou, Seto Kaiba, and Joey Wheeler."

Ryou turned this information over in his mind. He didn't know Kaiba as well as he did Yugi and Malik, but that would be okay. He wasn't one to spill secrets the minute they were told to him. Joey would be all right too. Although he did have a big mouth at times, he never let anything important slip. Not usually, anyway.

"You okay?" Harry asked. "You seem sort of preoccupied."

"I'm fine," Ryou said, dismissing the manner in as innocent of a way as possible. He would really have to limit his conversations with his yami to when nobody was around, or people would think he had an extremely short attention span.

~~It'll be easier said than done, Ryou. Trust me.~~

~And how would you know?~

~~Because you're doing it right now. Right after you said you should limit our conversations.~~

Ryou grumbled a little. ~Very funny…~

"Hey Ryou! Earth to Ryou! Are you sure you're o-"

He was cut off by Aunt Petunia's shrill voice.

"Boys! Come to dinner! Before Dudley eats all of it!"

Ryou didn't even acknowledge Harry before walking out the door to the stairs. It was like he was in another world.


	2. The Burrow

Notes: I tried to get this chapter out as fast as possible. I already had half of it done, so I guess it didn't take too long. I can't believe I actually got reviews saying that people liked my fanfic! I guess people like HP/YGO crossovers. Since there was no school Monday, I had a lot more time to write out the rest of this chapter. 

Disclaimer: Yet again, I do not own Harry Potter or YuGiOh. If I did I would have eliminated this pesky disclaimer thing a LONG time ago!

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Thanks to my reviewers, Silver Angel, Phantom, Rosz of the Angel, Kylie Alyssa Potter Kaiba, and Alaena!

To Phantom: Don't worry, I'm not going to pair anybody. I'm not good with writing romantic stuff anyway. Besides, the romantic stuff just doesn't seem to work with HP/YGO fanfics. And I _might_ bring in Malik. I'm not so familiar with how he acts so if I do bring him in he might be a little out of character. Anyways, I'll have made up my mind by Chapter 4.

To the rest of you: Thanks for reviewing, and enjoy Chapter 2 of Harry Potter and the Duel Monsters!

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New Author's Notes: I did a bit of rewording here and there, fixed a few awkward sentences. The only thing you may notice a difference to is the part where Ryou is about to leave Privet Drive. I'm trying to change the story a bit without completely changing the plot, because I've had a few people bring to my attention that the first two chapters are almost exactly like another story, and I don't want to plagiarize.

Chapter 2

The Burrow

The rest of the week passed uneventfully except the so-called headmaster of the school sent Harry yet more letters that he would pass on to Ryou. Apparently, they were all addressed to him and they all had something to do with his classes or friends. Ryou was starting to believe that this man was psychic or had ESP. Harry and Ryou kept their conversations to basic talk- the weather, games that they had both played, school, etc. Ryou didn't mention anything about the Millennium Items, his yami, or Duel Monsters. Harry was careful to keep his magical supplies away from Ryou, and avoided mentioning the subject when possible. Harry thought that it was strange that Professor McGonagall had completely forgotten to send a supply list and letter to Ryou. But he didn't think Professor Dumbledore would lie to him. Either way, he didn't want Ryou seeing his stuff, because he might tell the Dursleys and he wasn't even supposed to have his stuff in his bedroom in the first place. It was supposed to be all locked up in the cupboard under the stairs. He didn't know whether Ryou was a tattletale or not yet, having only known him for a while. He didn't seem like one, but it was better to play it safe. 

The Dursleys took Ryou sightseeing a lot. They took him to the zoo, an amusement park, and a sports stadium, and tried to keep him apart from Harry. They didn't want Ryou to find out the secret about Harry. Little did they know, Ryou already knew.

After a whole week had passed, Harry told Ryou to start packing up his stuff. Ryou still hadn't mentioned the fact that he was a wizard to the Dursleys. For one, he didn't know how they would take it. Besides, he still didn't know if he really was one, especially since the supply list that Harry had pointedly told him that he didn't have hadn't been sent to him yet. Third of all, Harry had mentioned that the Dursleys didn't appreciate wizards. Ryou didn't want to make his stay worse than it already was. Dudley was fat and ate a lot. Aunt Petunia was prone to spying on neighbors from the window. Uncle Vernon was usually cross or loud, or both. Bakura was on the verge of sending all of them to the Shadow Realm by the time they were supposed to leave. 

Ryou finally finished packing his suitcase. He dragged its bulk downstairs and placed it in the front hall, careful to avoid the Dursleys who were half sulking, half waiting in the living room. A few minutes later, the doorbell rang. When Harry excitedly opened the door, Ryou hung back around the staircase. He was shocked at the two's odd looks. Both had flaming red hair and freckles. The boy was tall and gangly. The man was tall with a half-bald head. The boy was wearing a pair of faded jeans and a T-shirt. However, the man was wearing something like a dress over his faded blue jeans and purple shirt. He had a piece of wood sticking out from his front pocket that was obviously a wand. Ryou took a closer look and realized that the dress was actually robes.

The Dursleys appeared in the hallway and scowled at Mr. Weasley. Harry had also mentioned that they didn't like anything out of the ordinary, and Mr. Weasley was definitely _more_ than out of the ordinary.

Mr. Weasley peered at Ryou and did a double take at his hair, then smiled warmly. "Ah, you must be Ryou. Professor Dumbledore sent an owl about you. We're to bring you to Diagon Alley tomorrow."

Ryou nodded. The tall boy introduced himself as Ron Weasley and then said, "Uh…Ryou…I'll take your trunk." Ryou nodded and shoved his suitcase into view. Ron staggered off with the bag. Ryou saw him heave it gently into the trunk of their blue Jeep.

Mr. Weasley took Harry's trunk and bag and threw them into the trunk. Then they all climbed in. Ryou hung back.

"Thank you for your hospitality," Ryou told the Dursleys, who nodded stiffly.

"It was a pleasure to have you," Aunt Petunia told him with a bit of falseness behind it.

"Yes, you were better than that nasty boy over there," Uncle Vernon said, glaring at Harry. It wasn't much of a compliment, but Ryou took what he could get.

~~Can I come out?~~

~…Fine. Just for a little while though.~

~~Oh, I only need a minute or two.~~ Ryou didn't like the smirk that was mentally spreading widely across his yami's face, but he relinquished control anyway. 

Bakura smirked. "Don't worry. I'll make sure nothing…_unfortunate_ happens to you when we return from that wizarding school. I should _hate_ for you to turn into a frog or sprout antlers." This was all said in a fake sugary-sweet voice.

Ryou groaned and took back control. Feeling it would be silly to stop and apologize, he climbed into the Jeep and peeked out the window.

The Dursleys' faces had gone red. Dudley was mouthing wordlessly. Uncle Vernon was roaring something about how he was worse than Harry and ought to be locked up, while Aunt Petunia stammered random things and nearly fainted.

Everybody burst out laughing at their antics, except for Ryou and Harry. Ryou promptly began communicating with Bakura as Mr. Weasley started up the car and zoomed off, while Harry watched Ryou suspiciously. With the return of Voldemort, anyone could be a spy. He felt a bit silly doubting his own cousin, but it couldn't be helped. He found it extremely odd how Ryou had seemingly switched from a caring and polite personality to a sarcastic and witty one in 0.2 seconds. 

Two hours passed on the car with Ryou mostly keeping to himself and the other boys chatting about their summer. The others introduced themselves as Fred and George. Ron mentioned something about a sister, Ginny, and another brother, Percy, who were at home.

After another half hour, the car slowed to a stop in a small but modest garage that was crammed with all different kinds of tools. There was a car that was half-taken apart, and its parts were scattered quite randomly across the floor. They all leapt out except Ryou who carefully slid out and shut the door quietly. He gasped in surprise at the house. It was very strange. It was a very tall house, with windows of all shapes, colors, and sizes. What looked suspiciously like the fan to a windmill was going at full speed at the front of the house. The bottom floor was made of stone, the rest of wood. The house was mostly browns and reds and the door was black. The top floor looked like it was sagging to one side. The roof was a large, striped cone, and there was a relatively normal-looking weather vane hanging rather crookedly off the side of it.

Mr. Weasley chuckled at the astounded look on Ryou's face. "We tried to make it look Muggle-like," he said. He looked like he expected Ryou to laugh or something.

Ryou sighed and asked, "What's a Muggle?"

Mr. Weasley started in shock and then relaxed. "Oh, I forgot you were new." He explained. "A Muggle is a non-magical person."

Ryou turned back to the house and studied it for a while before saying, "No offense, sir, but I think whoever designed the house got a little carried away…"

Mr. Weasley looked at it and shrugged. "It's okay, and besides, it's so far back that we couldn't get humiliated anyway. Only wizards live in this part of the neighborhood, and most of them look just as bad as ours if not worse."

Ryou had to suppress a shudder at the thought of a house worse than theirs.

Fred laughed in the front yard. "Welcome to The Burrow," he grinned. "It's what we call our house."

~~What an appropriate name. It's so small rabbits could live in it and not even be able to fit.~~ his yami commented dryly. ~~If I'm being sarcastic, it's only by a little. I am seriously not joking. You have to _stay _here until September 1st???~~

~Yeah, I hope the inside is better.~

Ryou made his way to the front door without his suitcase because Mr. Weasley was using what seemed like a 'long wooden stick' as Bakura called it, or a wand, in Ryou's language, to float the suitcases and trunks into the front door. Ryou hung back nervously until the parade of suitcases had floated through the door until he stepped in and took a look around. 

~~You know, I'm starting to wonder if these people _are_ rabbits.~~ Bakura commented dryly.

Ryou had to agree, although he didn't like criticizing other people. The kitchen was kind of neat, especially the clock. The hands had the names of the Weasley family written on them, with different locations written on the outside of the clock. All the hands but two pointed at 'Home'. The other two, which Mrs. Weasley explained were their other two sons, Charlie and Bill, were pointed to 'Work'. Ryou admired the clock for a while, then stared at the dishes that were being washed. No one was washing them, but obviously there was a spell cast that made the dishes wash themselves. The spoon in the pot on the stove was stirring itself.

The living room had papers spread all over the floor. Harry explained that that was Hogwarts summer homework. Fred and George cut him off and said those were order forms. But for what, they wouldn't say. Ron and Harry groaned. "Not this again!" they said in unison.

"Fred, I thought you promised never to make those again," Ron sighed. "You always said it was homework."

"Our fingers were crossed," George reassured him.

"_Not_ very reassuring," Harry muttered, and everybody but Ryou laughed, who didn't have a single clue what the heck they were talking about.

A seemingly hyper owl was zooming around a cage that was set up in a corner. "Shut up, Pig," Ron scowled, and threw his jacket over the cage to muffle his squawking.

Bakura laughed. ~~Pig? What kind of name is that???~~ Ryou raised an eyebrow at the strange name.

Then he looked at the stairs. They were spiral stairs, like the kind that you might find in a creepy, outdated old castle. Except that they weren't old, crumbling, gray stone like the castle ones. They were creaking, wooden stairs that were painted in bright colors. The stairs themselves were bright orange. The rails were painted in flaming red that perfectly matched the color of the Weasleys' hair. The whole thing looked very rickety. Ryou wasn't sure if he would want to climb those stairs at all, but he supposed he had to.

Dinner was delicious. They were celebrating, apparently, Harry's return to their house. Mrs. Weasley cooked dish upon dish of delicious foods, both foreign and everyday. Ryou ate quietly and tried not to draw attention to himself. He was just waiting for tomorrow where he could possibly meet Yugi and half of the rest of the gang.

Harry and the others tried to involve Ryou in evening activites, which apparently involved setting off fireworks indoors, but he decided to go up to his bedroom for bed. He just couldn't wait until tomorrow. He let Bakura out of the Ring and fell fast asleep to the sound of exploding coming from downstairs.

The next morning they were up at the crack of dawn to prepare for a busy day at Diagon Alley. Breakfast was just as delicious as lunch had been, and much more decorative. They ate in the kitchen, which still had a few rainbow-colored sparks fluttering around in it from the fireworks last night. After that Mrs. Weasley took a cracked flowerpot from the mantel of the huge brick fireplace, the only thing that looked fairly regular in the house. She reached into it and felt around.

"We're low again," she said to Mr. Weasley. "We'll have to get more at Diagon Alley. Oh well…guests go first in this household!" She offered the jar to Ryou and Harry. Harry took a pinch of the glittering powder in the jar. Ryou just stared curiously at the flowerpot.

"W-what am I supposed to do with it?" he stammered.

"Oh, dang," Harry said. "I forgot. Um, Mrs. Weasley…Ryou's never traveled by Floo Powder before."

Mr. Weasley smiled. "It's simple," he told Ryou. "Harry can go first. After that you can go. Quite simple, really. Just take a pinch and watch them."

"All right," Ryou said, and took a small bit of glimmering powder. Then he transferred it to his right palm.

Harry stepped up right in front of the fire, which was crackling merrily and occasionally sending out sparks of various colors. Then he threw the powder into the fire. The fire raged in the fireplace. Ryou shrank back. He shouted, "Diagon Alley!" and stepped _into_ the fire! With that, he disappeared, and the fire returned to its normal state.

Ryou gulped. Everyone was looking at him. "Your turn, Ryou dear," Mrs. Weasley said. 

"Don't fidget," Ron supplied helpfully.

"Keep your eyes and mouth closed, and only breath out unless you're really out of breath," Mr. Weasley warned. "The soot can get overwhelming at times."

"Wait until you see Harry, dear, or you might as well fall out at the wrong place." Mrs. Weasley said.

"Keep your elbows in," Fred said, winking.

Ryou threw the powder into the fire. It roared and turned green. "So I just yell and then go in?" he said nervously.

"Yeah," George said. "It's easy," he encouraged.

"Diagon Alley!" Ryou shouted, as clearly as he could. He stepped in and immediately took a mouthful of soot. The fire whisked him away…

Liked the revisions? Would you rather have me put it back the way it was? Leave a review and tell me!

~Kirbie~


	3. Knockturn Alley

Notes: Ok, I _did_ kill off the writer's block. That, coupled with the fact that there was no school today, let me write up the rest of the chapter _and_ post it. Anyways, I still haven't decided about Malik. Before, I would have added him sometime during Chapter 3 or 4, but since I'm still researching on how he looks and stuff (I've read SO many fanfics with conflicting information that it's hard to sort out what's actually right and wrong info), he might be introduced on the train ride to Hogwarts (probably Chapter 5). But Malik isn't in this chapter. Keep that info coming!

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**Thanks to my reviewers, Serenia, Catherine, Bulan-chan, Rosz of the Angel, AngelsKitten, Kylie Alyssa Potter Kaiba, Alaena Flamestar Dragon, and Silver Angel! You guys rock!**

~*~Thanks to Alaena for telling me stuff about Malik! ^_^ I appreciate it!~*~ 

Responses:

To Bulan-chan: Déjà vu, eh? Hmm, well I assure you that the plots won't be the same…I think… Thanks for putting me on your Favorite Stories list! ^_^

~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*

Disclaimer: Don't own it. Kazuki Takahashi is one lucky guy…

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New Author's Notes: Definitely not many changes to this chapter. I managed to write in a wand scene with Ryou though, because I just realized that Mrs. Weasley wouldn't be able to buy him his wand. ^^;; A bit late to the party, aren't I…so, it's longer, but somewhat rushed.

Chapter 3

Knockturn Alley

Ryou saw various scenes flash by him.

~~Ryou, what the hell are you _doing_? I will be _so_ humiliated if we get stuck up a fireplace…~~

~Um…I don't know what we're doing, traveling through fire?~

~~_I'm_ not doing _anything_! If something goes wrong, I _refuse_ to take the blame!~~

~Who said you were going to take it in the first place?~

~~Um…I don't know.~~

~Let's leave it at that.~

The fire had somehow returned to its normal state and color but he still wasn't being burned. Ryou tried to remember all the facts that the Weasleys had told him. He kept his eyes shut, tucked in his elbows, and tried not to fidget. However, that wasn't helped by the fact that the path of fire seemed to be jerking around violently. The only thing he forgot to do…

…was keep his mouth shut. The moment he stepped in, he had somehow started choking on soot that he hadn't even realized was there. Now that their traveling was whipping up something like a soot cloud, he started worrying about how he was going to breath later on.

~~I knew those Weasley people were mental from the start.~~ Bakura scowled. 

Ryou was too busy choking to try and find Harry at all. He saw people as he whizzed by, but they were all colorful blurs. Then, somehow, he sped up even more. The soot cloud grew larger, and Ryou promptly fell out of the fire path. The next thing he knew, he was flat on his face. If he had had glasses, they would have been broken in about three seconds. Bakura was laughing at him. 

"Where am I?" Ryou grumbled, and picked himself up. Somehow, his sweater had gotten all sooty and dusty. A wrought iron sign read, Knockturn Alley. The display windows in the shop were filled with gruesome things.

~Ew…Bakura, do you have any clue where we are?~

~~I don't know…~~

~Figures you don't know anything the minute I need your help.~

~~You'd better watch your mouth!~~

He started to dust off his sweater. _Well, I can at least explore a while here,_ he told himself. He started to walk around, but he knew he was wasting his time. This place was dark and mysterious, and he probably wouldn't be able to find anything on a Hogwarts supply list even if he searched all day. And this was _definitely_ not Diagon Alley. Besides, he didn't even have his supply list with him.

He strode around quite a bit when he saw a giant, shaggy head towering above the rest of the people. He caught sight of Ryou.

"You, you over there, with the white hair!"

~~If anyone refers to us as the 'kid with the white hair' one more time, I'll banish them to the Shadow Realm!~~

~Bakura…calm down!~

"Hey, anybody in there?" the giant inquired, waving a giant hand in front of Ryou's face. "Hello?"

Ryou snapped back to reality. "Uh, yeah, just…thinking…" He faltered when he looked at the giant. He was huge, and towered over anyone and everyone that was currently making their way through the plaza.

"Good," the giant said loudly. "My name's Hagrid. Well, Rubeus Hagrid, but everyone calls me Hagrid. I'm Keeper of the Keys at Hogwarts. And you?"

"Ryou Bakura," Ryou said. "I'm supposed to be starting Hogwarts, but well, er…"

Hagrid growled. "How did you end up _here_ out of all places? I suppose you were running around Diagon Alley and found the secret way in?"

"Er, no, sir, I was traveling by Floo Powder…"

Hagrid grinned. "That reminds me of the time Harry fell out of the fireplace at the wrong time. Landed exactly where you did, if I'm correct."

Ryou stared. "Which Harry?"

"Harry Potter," Hagrid said loudly, as if that explained everything.

~Isn't that my cousin?~

~~I think so, well he _said_ his name was Harry Potter…~~

"Er…" Ryou began, but Hagrid cut him off.

"Anyways, I gotta get you back to Diagon Alley. You traveling alone?" Hagrid made a motion for Ryou to follow him.

"No, sir, I was staying with a family called the Weasleys, and they were getting here by Floo Powder, and you know the rest…"

Hagrid chuckled. "I know the Weasleys. Hmm…there you go." They were in front of a gigantic, snowy-white building. "Gringotts," he explained. "Wizard bank."

Ryou gulped. _Wizard_ bank? They had a different kind of money? 

~~Bank?~~

~Uh…yeah.~

~~I could always steal some for you. Don't underestimate me.~~

~No!~

"Um, sir…I only have regular money…I mean, Muggle money…"

"Don't worry, they have exchange systems," Hagrid winked. "Ah, there they come now."

"Who?" Ryou asked curiously, but Hagrid pointed one finger and Ryou knew. The Weasleys were panicking, running towards him.

"Hagrid!" Harry and Ron, who were somewhat in the lead, yelled.

Mr. Weasley finally reached the two of them. "Molly's frantic, we hoped that you had only gone one grate too far, oh, here she comes now."

Mrs. Weasley ran up to them. "Oh, Ryou dear, we were so worried, are you all right?" She started to frantically brush off the soot on Ryou's sweater.

"Where'd you come out?" Fred asked.

"Um…a place called Knockturn Alley," Ryou said.

"Wow, again?" George exclaimed, grinning at Ryou.

"We _still_ haven't gotten in yet," Fred explained. "We've been trying and trying for years but we've never found the secret path."

"Good riddance!" Hagrid snorted. "Youngsters like you shouldn't be allowed to get in!"

"Again?" Ryou asked.

"Oh, Harry landed in Knockturn Alley a few years ago," Ron explained. Harry grimaced.

"That place was _horrible_!" he exclaimed.

"You came out in Knockturn Alley?" Mrs. Weasley screeched. "If it weren't for you, Hagrid-"

"Whoa, I'm having a _serious_ case of déjà vu here," George murmured to Fred, who started snickering. Mrs. Weasley glared at the two of them, who put on perfectly innocent faces. Ryou had to stifle a snigger.

"Now, now, Molly, I'm sure Ryou would've been able to take care of himself-"

"That doesn't matter, Arthur, what would have happened if he never found out how to get _out_ of there?" Mrs. Weasley continued with her if-then statements. 

"But that's not what happened, Molly, why can't we just put it behind us and get on with our shopping?"

Mrs. Weasley had stopped brushing off Ryou's sweater and was now wringing Hagrid's hand profusely. "If you hadn't found him!" she kept repeating.

Everyone exchanged amused glances.

"Um…she can do that," Mr. Weasley said uncertainly. "Ryou, do you have any Muggle money?"

Ryou nodded.

"I can go exchange that for you if you'd like," he offered. Ryou nodded again and handed over several 100-dollar bills. Amazingly, he seemed fascinated with the money. Or at least, he certainly gave that appearance, staring at the bills all the way up the stairs and until he vanished out of sight into the bank.

"Dad's crazy about Muggle stuff," Ron whispered to Ryou. "He takes them apart, puts them back together again, and takes them apart again. During our second year we found out that he made a flying car."

Ryou stared in shock. "A flying _what_?"

"Car," Harry said. "They came to the Dursleys' house and pulled me out the window at midnight."

"Wow…" Ryou said. "I'd like to ride in it sometime, if it's possible…"

"Nope," Fred said, sniggering. "The car's currently running wild in the Forbidden Forest somewhere." Seeing the clueless look on Ryou's face, he explained. "The Forbidden Forest is a forest on the Hogwarts grounds that the students aren't allowed to go in."

Ryou nodded. Bakura's attention was pricked, but they didn't mention any more of it, so he went back to doing who-knows-what in his soul room.

"Anyway, I think we'd better start doing the shopping," Mrs. Weasley said hastily, having finally stopped shaking Hagrid's hand.

"Er, well, I'd best be off," Hagrid said quickly. "So I'll see you at Hogwarts."

Everyone nodded. He strode off into the crowd.

"All right, let's start pairing you up…Ron and Harry, you can go together. Fred, George, you can run off and find Lee…I'll take Ginny with me. The adults will get your school stuff," Mrs. Weasley said, looking distracted. "Except Ryou…you need to get your new wand…now where did Arthur run off to…"

~~Wand?~~

~I don't know. We'll see.~

Fred and George screeched, "All right!" and started to run off, but Mrs. Weasley stopped them.

"And not one step down Knockturn Alley!" There were significant groans but they kept going.

"C'mon," Ron motioned to Harry. "Let's go find Hermione, if she's here. Mum's _kindly_ offered to buy all our supplies this time so…we have the day to ourselves."

Harry nodded. Then to Ryou, he said, "Do you think you could find Florean Fortescue's Ice Cream Parlor? We'll be there if you can."

Ryou nodded.

"Anything you want to order in particular? My treat," Harry said.

"Not really…"

"Then I'll just order you what we get, is that all right?" Harry asked. Ryou nodded. They left. Ryou followed Mrs. Weasley and Ginny to a shop called Ollivanders.

"Well, this is the best place for wands," Mrs. Weasley said cheerfully. 

~I don't know…this place looks ready to fall apart…~

~~Oh relax.~~

An old man emerged from the shadows. "Why hello there Molly. I remember the wand you bought perfectly. Willow, eleven inches, rather swishy, wasn't it? With a hair from the tail of a unicorn?" Mrs. Weasley nodded.

"I'd love to talk more," she said, "but he needs a new wand." She gestured to Ryou.

"Ah, a new customer," Mr. Ollivander said. "Hold our your wand arm, please." He grabbed a tape measurer off a dusty shelf.

"Er-" Ryou stuck out his right arm. "Like this?"

"Right," Mr. Ollivander said, and started measuring his arm, legs, hand, and chest, and basically anywhere else the tape measurer could reach. Then Ryou realized it was measuring itself. Mr. Ollivander was flitting around shelves, taking down seemingly boxes at random.

"Try this one," he said, handing Ryou a wand. "Thirteen and a half inches, elm, with a unicorn hair. Take it and give it a swish."

Ryou tentatively waved the wand around. The wand pulsed red.

"Well, I never!" Mr. Ollivander said, shocked. "That was quick!"

But just then all the mirrors in the shop shattered and the wand glowed black before reverting to its original state. Ryou blinked. 

"I guess that's not it," he said, quickly throwing the wand back into the box. "Sorry about that…"

"Mm," Mr. Ollivander said. "Try this one. Twelve inches, oak, and another unicorn hair- from a different one's tail this time."

The wand pulsed yellow. Mr. Ollivander looked at it suspiciously when there was a rather long delay.

Miniature eruptions exploded all throughout the shop, knocking over shelves and shattering windows. Ryou looked horrified. Mrs. Weasley looked ready to faint.

~~Destruction and carnage. Now _this_ is my kind of thing.~~

~_YAMIIIII_! That's _not_ funny! Do you know how much I'm going to have to _pay_ after this?~

"I suppose not. Try this one- willow, eleven and a half inches, with dragon heartstring," Mr. Ollivander said, unfazed, handing him the wand.

__

That wand happened to blow a hole right through the roof, causing fireworks to dance above the shop. Ryou could see the people walking around outside stop and admire the sight from the front window.

It went on like this, the wands rampaging the shop, until he finally found a suitable wand- a twelve inch long wand made of maple wood and containing a phoenix feather. Boxes of tried wands were stacked nearly up to the ceiling.

Ryou sighed as he handed over the money for the wand. "I should probably pay you the repair fees for the shop," he said.

"Oh, that's quite all right," Mr. Ollivander said. "Magic is very handy in this kind of situation." And he bowed them from his shop.

They ran into Ron on the way back to Gringotts. Mrs. Weasley looked delighted. "Ron, can you take Ryou with you? He just finished getting his wand."

"Okay," Ron said, looking at Ryou and grinning. Ryou simply followed him to where Harry had bought four double-scoop ice cream cones with sprinkles and nuts, and was passing them around. They seated themselves at an outdoor table. Ryou was sitting closest to the gate, so it wasn't any wonder that he heard some very strange conversation going on behind him.

"I'm telling you, that guy was as easy to squash as Weevil was at Duelist Kingdom! There is something very _wrong_ about him…"

Ryou listened closely.

"Yeah, well, are you sure you just haven't gotten better?"

"No, I'm _telling_ you that something is up with that guy! He said he was the most recent Intercontinental Dueling Champion!"

"Looks like Bandit Keith's title has just been eliminated…"

"Hey, Ryou, you ok? You're being really quiet," Ron said.

"Er…I'm fine, just…eavesdropping on some people's conversation," Ryou said.

Ron and Harry grinned. "Yeah, Fred and George do that a lot."

"That has got to be the longest duel I _ever_ played in my life!" came a voice behind Ryou. He started listening again. "I even almost ran out of cards!"

"Seriously?"

"Yeah, and after I pulled my last card, the guy just sort of…let me win. It was like he was just playing to see which cards were in my deck!"

"Why would they want to do that?"

"I don't know."

That was it. Ryou had heard enough to guess who these people were. He slowly swiveled around to see who the people were.

They saw him. 

"RYOU!"

Okay…that was a strange chapter. More like one of those 'fill-in-the-blank' sort of chapters that lead up to what's actually interesting. But I don't know if there's school the next day and if I wait to put up this chapter, I might not get to putting it up for a _long_ time. Anyway, thanks to Alaena AGAIN for telling me stuff about Malik. If anybody else can spare the info, I'd be _very_ glad. R+R! I'm surprising _myself_ with the rate that I'm putting these chapters up…wow…

Anyway, this chapter was 7 pages long. And one of the more important parts was that 'conversation' that Ryou was eavesdropping on. Read my bio for the due date for Chapter 4 of Harry Potter and the Duel Monsters!


	4. Meeting Up With the Gang

Notes: Thanks to all my reviewers! (The full list is posted below) Ok, this is a short chapter, just warning you. School just picked up again this week and without a two-hour delay as well, so I'm very sleep-deprived and cranky, and also I have writer's block again. *kicks writer's block out the window, but it just comes back to haunt me* Stupid thing won't go away. This is probably the shortest chapter I will EVER write but hey, it's writer's block. I just wanted to post this thing before I got all obsessed with the revising and the grammar and the spelling and all that editing stuff and then it would NEVER get up! Please don't criticize the shortness…

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Thanks to Silver Angel, Rosz of the Angel, Amy, Alaena Flamestar Dragon, Serenia, Bulan-chan, Computer, mike, Penny: Angel of Darkest Dreams, and AngelsKitten for reviewing my fanfic! 23 reviews? I feel loved…*sniffles*

~*~Special thanks goes out to Serenia and Rosz of the Angel for supplying me with information about Malik!~*~ ^_^ THANK YOU SO MUCH! (Hmm, I went for the professional angle this time…I don't think I did that on purpose…)

Hmm, no specific responses this chapter either, maybe next time! ^_^ On with Chapter 4!

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New Author's Notes: Right. Took out all mentions of Mai and Tea and made other people say their lines. Not many changes here, but edited some of what Yami said and I think overall the chapter is better now…

Chapter 4

Meeting Up With the Gang

"RYOU!" a chorus of voices yelled.

It was just who he had expected, Yugi, Yami, and Joey.

"What are you guys doing here?" he asked them happily. 

~~Argh! Pharaoh! No! Must get away!~~ Bakura was ranting inside Ryou's head.

//Idiot tomb robber, if he tries _anything_ I swear-// Yami was babbling inside Yugi's head.

"Um…Hogwarts?" Yugi offered, trying to ignore all of his yami's rants about how everything would go wrong now that the tomb robber was there.

Ryou nodded. "Same here!"

Joey put on an expression of disbelief at the term 'Hogwarts'.

"You know, I don't really believe all this magic stuff," Joey said. "I mean, yes, the Millennium Items were one thing, but…so much magic in one world is kind of…_unnerving_. I need to see an example of it before I'll believe it."

"Joey, you're sitting in an ice cream shop, eating ice cream at a table across what happens to look like a _hag_, and you don't think magic exists?" Yami snapped.

Joey was taken aback. "Whoa, touchy today aren't you, Yami?" But he left him alone after that.

Harry and Ron stared cluelessly at the almost-identical twins with the spiky, tri-colored hair. Ron was shocked speechless but Harry ventured, "Um…"

Yami turned to stare at Harry. He gulped. This guy had to have the meanest stare ever, well, Snape's was worse, but he loathed Gryffindors, and this guy wasn't even trying. Harry shivered. It was like the guy was looking into your soul or something.

"Yes?" he asked patiently, completely overruling the point of the stare.

"Are…are you two brothers?" Harry managed to stammer out, pointing at Yugi.

Yami shrugged. "I guess so." He turned away and suddenly became very interested in the shop across the street, which wasn't really all that interesting. There were a few strange displays in the window, but he had probably already taken a look at them when they arrived at the ice cream parlor in the first place.

__

I guess so? He doesn't know if they're brothers??? Harry thought, exasperated.

"How do you get your hair like that?" Ron finally blurted. "Did you put a spell on it or something?"

Yami regarded him as well, turning around from looking at the shop. "It's natural," he said simply, and then turned back around again.

"Not so talkative, huh," Ron said quietly to Harry, who subtly nodded.

__

Why do I get the feeling he works for Voldemort?

Who's Voldemort? Harry must've jumped about ten feet into the air because everybody stared at him like he was from Mars or something, but Yami simply turned his head away again and ignored him.

__

Something is not_ right about him…_ "Er, what's his name?" Harry muttered to Ryou, gesturing towards Yami.

"His name's Yami," Ryou said, confused. Harry nodded.

"Hey, uh, Yami, can I talk to you for a second?"

Yami's expression changed from impatient to annoyed and rather frustrated, but he nodded.

They went to a corner of the parlor. "Explain," Harry demanded.

"There isn't anything to explain!" Yami hissed. "Explain what? Why I'm here?"

"Then how did you read my mind- and _talk_ in my mind- if you don't work for Voldemort?" Actually, none of the Death Eaters Harry knew could read minds and talk in other people's minds. But that hinted that Voldemort had made a few new recruits lately…

Yami sighed. "_That_…is a long story. But who's Voldemort?" he insisted.

Harry frowned. Voldemort liked recruits that were on his side, who had dark powers, and who worshipped him no matter what it came down to. If Voldemort really had recruited this kid, how come he didn't even _know_ about him? Yami could just be acting, but he sure didn't seem like it.

"How old are you?" Harry asked.

"17," Yami said briefly, his gaze sliding away again.

"I get the feeling you're not telling me something," Harry said accusingly.

"There's nothing more to me then what you see!" Yami yelled, attracting the eyes of practically every person in the parlor.

"Hey, that gives me an idea…"

Yami crossed his arms over his chest and stared at Harry again, that deep, penetrating stare. "What?"

"I'm not a certified wizard, so I can't cast a spell on you to make you tell me the truth. But me being Harry Potter and all, anybody in this store would be willing to do one for me." Harry grinned slightly. "All I need to do is ask." He sort of expected Yami to look surprised at the name, but he just groaned and cursed under his breath.

"Ok, ok! I've been on the earth for a millennia, but I like to consider myself seventeen years old like my friends." Yami started to walk back, but Harry stopped him.

"How's that possible?"

Yami shrugged and made his way back to the crowd, and this time Harry didn't stop him, even though his brain was demanding that he answer some questions.

/Yami? Something wrong? I get the feeling you're uncomfortable…/

//Fine, aibou.//

/You're not./

//Yes, I AM! Leave me alone!//

/Yami?/

But by this time Yami had stalked out of the parlor, muttering things about nosy kids and wizardry.

Harry watched him go. Apparently, he wasn't all he claimed to be. He'd have to make Yami confess sometime. The millennia story was kind of hard to believe, so he decided that Yami had once again been lying.

Dead wrong, as it happened, but Harry didn't know that yet. 

All of a sudden, he also remembered something from a translation key in his textbook that he had read in History of Magic…something that he couldn't quite put his finger on anymore…and it probably wasn't worth asking anybody else, they'd all been asleep, including Hermione. Harry snickered at the thought of Hermione, the smartest kid in probably the whole _school_, sleeping during class. 

He tried to think of it for a while longer, but all he could think of were the words 'shadow' and 'darkness'. All those times that he had wished that that Japanese translation book was in the trash, he had had it, even though he didn't want it to be there. And now when he wanted to look up a word, it was locked up securely in his trunk at the Weasleys' house.

Darkness…was that what Yami's name meant? Why would he be named that?

And if he wasn't a normal teenager, then…

Who was he? Or, more like, _what_ was he?

~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*

Hmm…once again, sorry for the shortness! Eek, I think I'm going to lose all my reviewers with this one little short chappie…*sniffles* Please make me happy and review! Please?

Yami: I suggest Yugi's puppy-dog eyes.

DarkMagicianGirl: Hmm, you know, Yami, that might just work! THANK YOU SO MUCH! *glomps Yami who blushes furiously*

Yami: I'll, er…get him for you. YUGI!

*Yugi enters the room*

Yugi: Yeah?

DarkMagicianGirl: Please use your famous puppy-dog eyes on the reviewers to make them REVIEW even though this chapter is so short and lame!!!

Yugi: You know…Kisaru said, "Your best critic is yourself" or something like that. If you think it's not that lame but still is a bit, people will think it's okay. If you think it's awesome, well…I guess people will bow down before your great fanfic or something like that…*shrugs* That's what she said at least…

DarkMagicianGirl: *rolls eyeballs* I don't really care about her quotes…

Yugi: But ok, on with the puppy-dog eyes… *uses his godly puppy-dog eyes on all the reviewers everywhere to make them REVIEW!!!*

DarkMagicianGirl: *faints from the cuteness of it all* EEP! 

Yugi: o_0 What did I do? She TOLD me to do it!

Everybody else: *shrugs*


	5. Platform Nine and Three Quarters

Notes: Ok, I apologize if this took a while. But it's extra-long to make up for my VERY VERY short chapter last time. I was going to split this chapter up into two…but decided against it. (^_^) Oh yes, and in this fanfic, Kaiba actually acts _civil_ toward Yami. Er, make that nice. 

****

Thanks to my reviewers, Mystic Queen, Rosz of the Angel, Silver Angel, Alaena Flame Dragonstar, Blackbird, and Unintentional Nightmare. 

Review Alert: I need to know which houses Yugi, Joey, Mai, Ryou, Kaiba, Malik, and Tea should go into. If you'd just send your opinion in a review, I'd take the most popular houses for each of them. Thanks!

Kisaru: How do you feel about this chapter, DMG?

DarkMagicianGirl: It's long, and not bad.

Kisaru: *consults scripts and lists of opinions* That means the readers will….will….

DarkMagicianGirl: *taps foot impatiently* Yes?

Kisaru: Um…*sweatdrops* Er…I don't really KNOW what they'll do!

DarkMagicianGirl: I know! I know! *raises hand up into the air and waves it around frantically*

Kisaru: What?

DarkMagicianGirl: They will- *pauses for effect* REVIEW!!!!!!!!

Kisaru: Oy. Review freak. But anyway, on with her fanfic.

DarkMagicianGirl: That's MY line, you're my guest fanfic writer today so YOU say the disclaimer!

Kisaru: I suppose I'll STAY your guest fanfic writer for all eternity?

DarkMagicianGirl: *nods* Now SAY THE DISCLAIMER!

Kisaru: NEVER!

DarkMagicianGirl: *pulls out hair dryer and brandishes it threateningly* Oh yes you will!

Kisaru: EEP! OK! OK! The disclaimer is as follows- DarkMagicianGirl owns NOTHING! NADA! Er…ZERO! And she also apologizes for all those other times that she missed the disclaimer on her other chapters!

DarkMagicianGirl: Thanks, Kisaru! And now, on with the fic!

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New Author's Notes: Again, not many changes. Rewording, added quotes, and a few other additions seem to be the extent of the editing. I also fixed the "ghost" thing that a lot of people commented on (most of them laughing hysterically…@.@) so it actually makes sense now…I don't know _what_ was going on through my head when I wrote that…

Chapter 5

Platform Nine and Three-Quarters

Yami stormed through the crowded streets, his fury practically forging him a path through the crowds thronging the cobbled paths in Diagon Alley. _Why did I let Yugi convince me to come here in the first place? _he silently fumed. _WHY?_

He was so mad he rammed into someone coming out of an old, dusty-looking store. "Hey!" the person snapped. "Watch where you're going, you-" He stopped.

"Is it my hair again?" Yami snarled. "I don't want to hear any comments about it!"

"Yugi?"

"_What_?" Yami practically shrieked. "How'd you know my name? And I-" He fell silent seeing who it was. "_Kaiba_?"

The teenage CEO of KaibaCorp was standing in front of him, looking a bit disgruntled and ruffled, with his ever-present silver briefcase in his hand, and a big, bulky bag in the other.

"Er…Yugi? You seem a bit…angry today."

"That was the understatement of the _millennia_," Yami grumbled. "And believe me, I would know. And it's Yami, not Yugi. Yugi's off with some so-called famous wizard named Harry Potter. Personally, I think he's a no-good, nosy, stupid, b-" Kaiba cut him off.

"Harry Potter?" he asked in a fairy interested tone.

"What's with you?" Yami asked, annoyed. "He's just some nosy kid that knows too much for his own good."

"He's got some weird past," Kaiba frowned. "Although personally I don't believe a single word of it."

"What?" Yami asked, leaning against the wall of the shop. 

"There's this weirdo so-called Dark wizard named Voldemort," Kaiba said matter-of-factly. "He went around killing lots of people with a weird spell and…yeah…"

"Yeah?" Yami asked.

Kaiba shrugged. "He survived the attack. No one else did. And all the other times Voldemort's attacked Harry at school, well, he's escaped and survived those too."

Yami raised an eyebrow. "These people sure can come up with stories!"

"What are you talking about, coming up with stories?" a know-it-all voice snapped over the crowd.

They both whirled around to face a girl with auburn hair, who also looked very brown, as if she'd spent too much time out in the sun lately.

"Who are you?" Kaiba demanded.

"Hermione Granger," the girl said. "And that story's real. Any wizard with _any_ brains at all would know that it's true."

That ticked Yami off. "Are you implying that the two of us have no brains?" he accused.

"Of course not!" she scoffed. "I'm just saying."

Yami rolled his eyes. "Anyway, I think this famous Harry Potter and Ron were looking for you," he said. "Why don't you go join those two instead and leave us two idiots to talk?" He said this in a very sarcastic tone.

"You _are_ very rude, you know that?" Hermione said, looking Yami up and down.

"Do you enjoy telling people that they're rude to their face?" Yami snapped. 

"For your information, I don't," Hermione said in a lofty tone. "This is just the exception to that rule." And she turned away from the two of them and flounced away.

Kaiba stared after her, and then turned to Yami, saying, "I think you actually _were_ a bit rude there, she was just telling her opinion of the matter."

Yami shrugged indifferently, not really caring until Kaiba told him, "I think you should go back there and apologize."

"Apologize???" he sputtered. "Apologize? I'm not apologizing to _her_!"

"Think about it, Yami, she didn't do anything wrong, she just ticked you off and you started yelling flat out in her face. Would _you_ just stand there and do nothing while someone insulted you in your face?" Kaiba reasoned.

"Of course not! I would Mind Crush their disrespecting bodies into the Shadow Realm and back!"

Kaiba snorted. "Well, that's _not_ going to work here. I believe you'll have to apologize to her. Making an enemy on the first day is _not_ a good thing."

"But…but…"

"Well then, it's agreed. I'll just follow you. You can lead me back to Yugi and the others." Kaiba fell in step behind him.

"_What_? Did I _say_ I was going to-" But Kaiba began shoving him back to the ice cream parlor, so Yami fell silent, fuming, and trying to come up with the least embarrassing way to apologize to that brat girl.

They finally found their way back to Florean Fortescue's Ice Cream Parlor, where Hermione was conversing quietly with Ron and Harry, and Yugi and the others were talking and laughing.

"Look! Yami's back!" Yugi piped up suddenly, breaking into a smile.

"Yami! Hey, you're back!" Joey got up, grinning. "Where'd you go off to?"

Yami shrugged. "Nowhere. But I picked up Kaiba on the way back."

Kaiba looked at him. "If you want me to, I'll _leave_," he hinted. "I still have some packages that I need to retrieve."

"Fine, fine, whatever, you can stay," Yami said, glaring at Hermione with one of his death stares.

Kaiba poked Yami in the back, hard. "Go!" he hissed, and shoved him forward a few steps.

If looks could kill, Kaiba would have been ten feet underground by then, but Yami tapped Hermione on the shoulder and said, "Hey, can we talk?" in a very forced but casual way.

She stared at him pointedly, but he ignored her and she finally nodded. "Fine," she said. "Although I _don't_ know why _you'd_ want to talk with me."

"Don't push it," Yami snapped. "I just wanted to say sorry for earlier." He spun on his heel and was about to march back to Yugi's group, which was laughing and showing each other the Duel Monsters cards that they had acquired over the summer break, but Hermione grabbed his arm.

"What do you want?" he said in an exasperated tone.

"You're not too social, are you?" she asked him.

Yami gave a pained sigh. _If this is turning into another one of those interrogation sessions, I am _leaving_!_ "Nope," he said simply, hoping to avoid the stream of questions coming his way later.

However, Hermione seemed to understand that some people needed some space, and she backed off. "I understand," she said quickly, and Ron and Harry engaged her in conversation again. Something about a game called Quidditch.

Yami looked at her for a few minutes before heading back to Yugi's group. (A/N: There will be NO ROMANCE! Understood? Yami does NOT like Hermione, and vice versa, and to answer many people's questions…Ryou only likes Bakura in a brotherly way, and vice versa…and the same with Yugi and Yami…sorry for the disappointment!) He sighed, absorbed in his thoughts and not really paying attention to the conversations going on around him, no matter how loud they were.

Ryou noticed Yami's preoccupation. "Hey, Yami, are you feeling all right?" he inquired.

Yami smiled, although it was sort of obvious it was false, and said, "Fine."

Mrs. Weasley suddenly materialized into view from the crowd bustling outside the ice cream parlor. "There you are, Ron, Harry, Ryou," she said briskly. "We've gotten all your stuff and we really need to go if we're going to get home in time for me to get dinner ready." She saw Hermione and greeted her with a smile. "How have you been doing, Hermione? Ron said you went to France again, is that right?"

Hermione nodded. "It was great!"

"Ron, Harry, Ryou," Mrs. Weasley began, but Ron cut her off.

"Coming, mum."

Harry and Ron said goodbye to Hermione, who returned to her shopping after they had left, and Ryou said farewell to his friends.

"So I'll see you at Hogwarts," he said to everyone there. It wasn't a question, but a statement. Everyone nodded.

Yami nodded absently, lost in his own thoughts again. 

"Well, 'bye," he said, seeing Mrs. Weasley beckon to him. Everyone waved and said goodbye, and Ryou followed Mrs. Weasley down the cobbled pathway, trying not to lose her in the crowd. Ron and Harry were talking animatedly behind him, and Ryou secretly wished one of his friends was coming along with him as well. It was sort of lonely with only Bakura to converse with, and it wasn't easy talking with him because he'd zone out every time he talked to him. And Ryou couldn't afford to space out with so many people jostling him.

They battled the crowds all the way back to Gringotts. "How are we getting back?" Ryou asked, suddenly realizing that they had no form of transportation.

"Floo Powder!" Mrs. Weasley crowed cheerfully. "How else would we get back?" Harry and Ron both chuckled at the expression on Ryou's face.

"But, er, there's no fireplace," Ryou supplied, trying to get out of it.

Mrs. Weasley pointed happily at Gringotts. "Which is why it's such a useful building!" she said. "It's got several nice, solid fireplaces. People are always using Floo Powder to get in and out of Diagon Alley from there. If you had gotten the traveling right the first time, you would have gotten out at Gringotts."

Ryou groaned again, but didn't complain as they trudged up the marble steps leading to the gigantic doors. The rest of the group, Fred, George, Ginny, and Mr. Weasley, were gathered by the fireplace farthest away from them. They went over, and Mrs. Weasley produced a jar of Floo Powder from her robes pocket. "Ryou goes first," she said, holding out the jar to him.

Ryou groaned.

*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*

Ryou somehow managed the second journey by Floo Powder better than his first- he did land in the right place, but he landed flat on his face, causing his nose extreme pain as he did so. He managed to stand up and brush the soot and dust off his sweater and pants before the next person appeared. Ron somehow managed to stay upright as he stumbled out of the fireplace as if he'd just started running very fast and was forced to slow down right away. After that came Harry and Ginny, and Mrs. Weasley and Mr. Weasley both Apparated with a _pop_!

"Well, I'm off to prepare dinner," Mrs. Weasley said, heading toward the kitchen. "Behave yourselves."

Mr. Weasley went to the shed to tinker with more Muggle stuff. 

"Hey, Ryou, want to learn some Quidditch?" Harry asked generously.

Ryou suppressed a shudder at the thought of swooping and diving on a broomstick, without a harness of any kind. "No thanks, I'll pass on that one," he said quickly. "I think I'll just go upstairs and find something to do…"

Ron shrugged. "Suit yourself," he said, and the rest of them went off to play Quidditch except Ginny who wandered into the living room to apparently finish her Hogwarts summer homework. Ryou ascended their wooden, spiraling, rickety, brightly-colored stairs and shoved the door to his room open.

~~Let me out! Let me OUT!~~

~OK already, just have some patience!~ Ryou quickly let the restless spirit out of the Ring and sat down with him on the bed. Bakura sprawled out on it, forgetting all dignity.

"Ah, that feels good," he said. "That Ring is hospitable, but…"

Ryou nodded.

"It's still getting smaller," Bakura complained.

"Maybe you're getting bigger," Ryou joked. Bakura grinned; they both knew that the spirits couldn't change their appearances naturally.

Bakura looked out the window and snorted. "What is _that_?' he demanded, pointing at Ron, who was riding a broom so slow a turtle could have beaten it in a race.

"Um…wizard sport called Quidditch. Harry has a better broom, I think," Ryou said, looking at Harry spiral downwards on his sleek and shiny Firebolt.

Bakura rolled his eyes. "I _so_ prefer Duel Monsters better," he complained.

"I brought Kaiba's new holographic duel mats," Ryou suggested. "We could duel each other." But Bakura stomped on this statement, saying that they both had the same decks, and it wasn't any good dueling someone who had memorized your deck already. 

"I guess you're right," Ryou said finally. "I wonder when dinner is."

"Hungry?" Bakura asked.

Ryou nodded. "Man, you're lucky you don't need to eat!"

Bakura grinned slightly. "I _do_ save a lot of food bills…"

Ryou bopped Bakura on the head with his fist, and they both laughed. They proceeded to talk about Hogwarts and their friends until Mrs. Weasley called them down to dinner. By this time, Ryou was looking forward to the meal, which was worth the wait. Definitely.

They ate outside. Mr. Weasley had obviously conjured up some tables and had set them up outside. Although they were very sturdy, after Mrs. Weasley had loaded them up with all of her ridiculously complicated but delicious-looking platters of food, they were groaning and shifting under all the weight.

"Have a seat, Ryou," Mr. Weasley said, pulling a seat out next to him. Ryou sat in it and helped himself to mashed potatoes. He was sort of expecting a quiet meal in which the Weasleys and Harry chattered nonstop and he would just sit quietly and eat. That was the setting he was used to at home. But as soon as Mr. Weasley had gotten some food on his plate he started bombarding Ryou with questions about Muggle things like electricity, the post office, and TVs. When Ryou started explaining about plugs and outlets, Mr. Weasley leaned in in a very knowing manner and said, "You know, I collect plugs. I have a very large collection in my workshop." Fred and George snickered, and Ron and Harry seemed to be holding back laughter. Ryou had to admit that it was very funny.

"Um…Mr. Weasley, you're not quite supposed to collect plugs…" Ryou said.

Mr. Weasley nodded energetically. "I know! I take them apart, put charms on them, and make them do different things. I think they're highly amusing."

Ryou stared, and everyone else gave up trying to hold back their laughter and started snickering. Ron laughed so hard that he got the hiccups and Harry had to slap him on the back.

After that incident, Mr. Weasley didn't bring up the subject of plugs again, but halfway through dinner a few came smashing through the garage window and started swooping on the group like a horde of flies. Everybody screamed and Mr. Weasley just chuckled and muttered something about a spell gone wrong. Ryou saw Fred and George conversing in low whispers, probably something about revenge on Mr. Weasley.

After dinner, everyone invited Ryou to join them for a mug of hot cocoa and some fireworks in the kitchen, but Ryou declined the invitation. 

~~Fireworks? In the kitchen? These people are mad!~~

~I really hope they don't blow up the house, because I'm staying in here as well.~ Ryou replied and went up the stairs. Behind him, he heard someone trying to strike a match, and couldn't help wondering how long it was going to take them to actually light one.

In the bedroom, Ryou let Bakura out of the Millennium Ring again and they had a rather loud conversation about Duel Monsters, because they were both highly excited about the trip to Hogwarts the next day and the fact that Ryou was rather hyper due to the many strange assortments of candy they had had as dessert. Ryou had fun describing the candy to Bakura in great detail, sometimes even making him jealous that he couldn't have gone down there and stuffed himself as well.

Because Ryou's room coincidentally didn't have a clock, they didn't know that they talked and carried on past midnight. And that wasn't a good thing.

~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*

Ron's POV

Harry had gone upstairs a few minutes ago, saying that he wanted to get an early start tomorrow so he was going to bed. A few minutes after he left, Mom made me go up as well. Ginny was probably sound asleep by then, however, so she threatened to curse me with her wand if I woke her up or disturbed Harry, and sent me upstairs with a vigorous wave of her wand. All of a sudden, a big batch of sparks exploded out of the tip with a tremendous BANG, and she blushed furiously. Fred and George were snickering.

"Molly, and you were saying not to wake them up? I think everyone will wake up screaming about a bomb dropping or something," Mr. Weasley teased, his eyes twinkling. "Good night, Ron."

I nodded and waved, and went up the stairs. However, halfway up the stairs, some loud voices caught my attention. They seemed to be coming from upstairs. All of a sudden I froze, remembering what had happened to Harry the last time _he_ had started hearing voices.

"Uh-oh," I muttered, and proceeded cautiously up the stairs. I ran over the list of people upstairs in my mind. _Ginny, Harry…_All of a sudden I realized that Ryou was upstairs as well, but he didn't seem like one to scream. I went upstairs and down the hall to where Ryou was staying in our guest room.

There was a THUD from that room, some giggling, and then a dry voice said, "Ryou…I think you need to take some medications." There were some thumping noises, and then some squealing and laughing, and then a soft THUMP as Ryou probably landed on the bed.

__

Who's up there with him? I wondered. I tiptoed down the hall to Ginny's room and looked in. She was fast asleep in her bed. Then I went to Harry's room. I heard him muttering to himself in it.

__

There's a ghost_ in here_! I screamed in my mind, but the logical part of my brain snapped back, _Nonsense, there is no such thing as ghosts._

Wait. That must be the stupidest thing I've ever said in my life. Images flashed in my head of all the Hogwarts ghosts, not to mention the ghoul haunting our attic.

__

Just great, I thought to myself. _Now I'm arguing with myself in my head _and_ being an idiot. I think I'm going paranoid. Ryou _is_ the only one in that room…_

I went back to the doorway, which was, luckily, open a few inches. I edged over to it and peeked through. What I saw made me almost topple over in surprise.

There were two Ryous in the room. One was giggling excessively on the bed, apparently having eaten too much sugar lately, and the other one looked almost evil.

I took a close look at the Ryou who was standing in the corner and laughing. His eyes were more narrow, his features more evil, but he didn't seem evil. At least, not around Ryou. Because I was sure that the one on the bed was the real Ryou. 

"Silly," the evil Ryou said. "I don't even have any medications for you, how could I give them to you?"

Ryou shrugged and grinned. "Hey, Bakura, are you going to go back into the Ring now?" He pointed accusingly at a golden ornament that was somewhat along the lines of a necklace.

Bakura shrugged as well and said, "If you want to go to bed I will."

Ryou nodded. "I am sort of tired, Yami, so…good night!"

Bakura snorted. "If you can manage to get to sleep with all that sugar in your bloodstream." But he gave Ryou a friendly hug and somehow managed to disappear into thin air.

"Ack!" I gasped, and then clapped a hand over my mouth and backed down the hallway towards my room.

"What was that?" a voice snapped. Probably Bakura's.

"I don't know, I heard someone talking out there…" Ryou muttered drowsily.

I dove into my room, panting. If they were going to come looking, they weren't going to find me.

Normal POV

Bakura said, "Oh well, it was probably the wind. Go to sleep, hikari."

Ryou nodded sleepily. "Good night!"

Bakura vanished into the Ring again for the night, still a bit worried over who had seen the two of them together.

In the morning, Ryou woke up a bit early. He went into the hall bathroom, brushed his teeth, took a shower, got dressed, and ran a hand through his hair in an attempt to comb it. He threw everything into his trunk and double-checked its contents. Then he slipped the Ring under his shirt and went down the stairs. Mrs. Weasley was bustling around the kitchen making breakfast, and Mr. Weasley looked very out of place getting socks and robes from the clothesline and going upstairs to deliver them to all the boys and Ginny, and to wake them up.

"Good morning, dear," Mrs. Weasley greeted Ryou. "How did you sleep?"

"Fine, thank you," Ryou said, and perched himself onto a couch leg.

"Have you packed your trunk?" Mrs. Weasley asked him. "We have to leave shortly after breakfast."

Ryou nodded. "I did it after I took a shower," he said.

"Good," she said. "Breakfast will be ready soon." Ryou eyed the sparks dancing about the kitchen. She saw him follow one with his eyes. "Leftovers from yesterday's fireworks," she explained, smiling. "They're not potentially dangerous."

"Ah," Ryou said, a bit lamely, and settled back into the couch to wait. 

__

Well, at least they didn't blow up the house.

In what seemed like no time at all, Mrs. Weasley was ushering him to the table, where Ron, Harry, and Ginny were sitting, looking half-asleep and tousle-haired.

"Morning," Ron greeted Ryou with a huge yawn.

"Good morning," Ryou said softly, and sat down next to Ginny, smiling at her. She grinned.

"Here you go, just speak up if you want more butter or jam," Mrs. Weasley said briskly, sliding four loaded plates in front of them. By this time, Fred and George had joined them in the kitchen, yawning almost simultaneously.

"Good…morning," George mumbled, stifling a yawn in the middle of the sentence.

"Good morning, dears," Mrs. Weasley said. "Breakfast is ready, have you all packed your trunks? We're running late…oh dear…"

Everyone nodded and started shoveling food into their mouths. Ryou finished first and wandered back into the living room to wait for the others. He didn't have to wait long. Soon everyone was dragging trunks down the stairs, bumping into each other on the stairs and dropping socks and things everywhere. Ryou sighed as he tripped over another book. He wondered when everything that had been dropped would be returned to their rightful owners and everything else sorted out.

Mrs. Weasley was right when she said they were late. By the time everyone had gotten everything they needed, it was almost 10:30, and they had to leave right there and then without any more delays or interruptions or they would miss the train.

"It's very punctual," Mrs. Weasley explained to Ryou. "It leaves at 11:00 on the dot." Ryou nodded, understanding, and everyone got into the magic-enlarged car and they started driving to the station.

They arrived at the station with ten minutes left on the clock. By the time they had gotten trolleys and had made their way to the appropriate area, they were left with three minutes. "We made it," Mr. Weasley sighed. "Onto the platform, everyone."

"Er…platform 9 and three-quarters?" Ryou questioned. He looked from his ticket to the platforms. There was one platform with a big white sign that said Platform 9 on it, and a platform with a big white sign that read Platform 10 on it, but there was no platform 9 and three-quarters.

"It, er, keeps Muggles away," Mrs. Weasley explained hastily. "Oh, I don't have time to explain it all…"

"Just head directly towards that barrier," Mr. Weasley said, gesturing towards a big, solid, brick barrier directly ahead of Ryou.

"Um, I don't think I should," Ryou started to say, but was cut off by Mrs. Weasley.

"It's perfectly safe, look, Harry, Ron, you go first and give Ryou an example."

Harry and Ron nodded, wheeled their trolleys towards the barrier, ran, and disappeared somewhere in front of it.

"What just happened?" Ryou questioned.

"They went through the barrier to platform 9 and three-quarters," Mr. Weasley said. "Just run towards it. I promise you won't make a fool out of yourself."

"Um, well, ok…" Ryou said, and braced himself for the impact that was sure to come. Then he took off toward the barrier.

~~RYOU! WHAT ARE YOU DOING???~~

~Listening to the Weasleys! Is there something wrong with that?~

~~YES!~~ But too late, for Ryou had already gone too far. He was inches away from the barrier and then-

"Wow…" Ryou breathed.

Was that long enough for your enjoyment? A total of 11 pages on Microsoft Word. Hehe! Please read and review!


	6. Journey to Hogwarts

Notes: Okay, from now on, all my chapters are going to be nice and long. Once Yugi and the others survive past Halloween (and there _is_ gonna be some action on Halloween), the _main_ action will start. So I'm just concentrating on getting there, because I wanna write the action!!! And since I NEED action in this story (okay, I'm hyper right now), there's a little thing in here where Voldemort figures out how to summon duel monsters from the Shadow Realm and summons some to the train. Oh, and one thing, since I like Yami more than Yugi, Yami's going to be taking over Yugi's body the whole of this chapter, and that's why he's not saying anything or being mentioned. To clear up any other problems, let's just say Yami and Bakura can take solid form when they want, but otherwise they live in the items. 

****

Thanks to my reviewers, Yami's Girl 3000, Anya, Arian Starswing, Yana, Alaena Flame Dragonstar, Phantom, Silver Angel, and Blue-eyes White Dragone!

Disclaimer: 

I don't own. You don't sue. It's as simple as that.

Key:

/(words)/ = Yugi talking mentally to Yami

//(words)// = Yami talking mentally to Yugi

~(words)~ = Ryou talking mentally to Bakura

~~(words)~~ = Bakura talking mentally to Ryou

"(words)" = speech (if you didn't know that…go take some grammar classes or something)

****

New Author's Notes: Fixed the fight scene, yes. Yami still loses, but Bakura has more of a part, but it's still kind of awkward. I don't like writing fight scenes where the main character either has problems winning or loses.

Chapter 6

Journey to Hogwarts

Ryou had rushed through the barrier into a crowd of robe-wearing wizards and witches. 

~See? You just have to trust people sometimes.~

Bakura wouldn't answer, but Ryou could hear him grumbling in his soul room. 

Ryou looked around at all of the witches and wizards. Most of the kids were pushing around trolleys, either empty or loaded up, or climbing onto the train. The adults were mostly there to send them off. Not quite knowing what to do, Ryou hung around near where he had come out originally, waiting for Harry and the Weasleys to come in and tell him what to do. Soon afterwards, Harry and Ron came charging in from the fancy wrought iron sign that read "Platform Nine and Three-Quarters".

"Ryou, get on the train!" Ron hollered. "It's gonna leave without us!"

Ryou quickly obliged, but when he had finished fighting the crowd and had gotten to the train he realized with a groan that he still had to get his horribly heavy trunk onto it before he could get on himself. 

"Ryou!"

Ryou turned around and saw Yami and Joey heading towards him. "Hey, need a hand?" Joey asked.

Ryou nodded gratefully. "This thing is way too heavy. I didn't know all those spellbooks could weigh so much."

Joey and Yami chortled and helped him shove the trunk aboard. Then Ryou clambered aboard himself and followed Joey and Yami with the trunk to the back compartment, which they had managed to snag before anyone else.

"Trunks go up there," Yugi said, waving at the compartments that lined the roof of the car. Yami chuckled at the expression on Ryou's face. He was staring open-mouthed at the compartments, then at his trunk, and back again.

"Don't worry, we'll help," Joey grinned and winked, and the three of them shoved Ryou's monster of a trunk into a compartment that only had one of Kaiba's bags in it.

They took a seat and started chatting excitedly about their summer vacation.

~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~

"Have you found _nothing_ yet?" The voice was very impatient.

"I am looking, my Lord, but so far I have not found anything." This was the high-pitched squeak of Wormtail.

The man who had first spoken got up and paced around the room. "If you do not find anything within the next day, then I will have to join the search also. And if I must, then you will pay."

"Yes, my Lord." There was some rather frantic scrabbling through the bookcases until Wormtail squealed, "My Lord! I have found something that may be of interest to you!"

The shadowy figure quickly swept across the floor to where Wormtail was waving about an ancient-looking, dusty old book in the air rather energetically.

"Let me see it." 

Wormtail quickly handed over the book to him and waited for his opinion on the matter.

"You have done well, Wormtail," the figure said, grinning rather evilly. "This will more than get rid of that annoying Harry Potter…and this year he is weaker than ever, without his mother's protection." Nothing more was said between the two as the shadow swept out of the room to prepare the spell, and Wormtail collapsed in relief.

~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*

The train started to move when Harry, Ron, and Hermione came into the compartment. "Can we sit here?" Harry asked. "Everywhere else is full."

Ryou nodded. "Of course."

The train had hardly started moving, but Joey was practically screaming. "DOES THIS TRAIN SERVE ANY FOOD?" he yelled. "I'm _hungry_!"

Everyone but Kaiba, who was snickering something about how the only thing ever on the puppy's brain was food, tried to get him to quiet down before he got them all in trouble.

"You just _ate_," Yami sighed. "Nearly spent the last of our Muggle money too while you were at it." He glared. "So you'd better quiet down."

"Eh, whoops…sorry." Joey then began mumbling incoherent things. They were probably about the food shortage on the train, but as long as he wasn't screaming, they all let him complain as much as he liked.

Yugi extracted a pack of cards from his pocket and suggested that they play a game with them. Everyone agreed except Harry, Ron, and Hermione, who went into one of the corners and started talking about something in low whispers. Yami kept winning, being the King of Games, except soon after all the cards exploded simultaneously with a rather loud BANG.

Everyone shrieked. Joey dove under the seat thinking the compartment had exploded, but Kaiba dragged him out by his ear, smirking, which was enough for him to stop shaking.

"Ryou, read the box," Yami ordered, after he realized that the cards were pretty much unharmed, but they had just exploded.

He read it. "Exploding cards?" he questioned. "Interesting…oh, you're supposed to play a game called Exploding Snap with them…" He read the instructions. "Anyone up for a game?" he asked. 

Ron tried to stifle a snicker at Joey and the others but failed.

After everyone had memorized the rules, they started to play, Yami winning most of the time. Everyone could see that Kaiba was about to threaten Yami to stop playing because he was winning so much.

No wonder. Kaiba had always been a sore loser. Well, most of the time, anyway.

~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~

He was almost done with the spell that would allow him to call upon the Shadow Realm and any monsters willing to do his bidding. He quickly finished and called forth the Shadow Realm. The air crackled with excess energy and a void opened in the room, shadows spilling into the room. (A/N: Um…I don't know what happens when they call the Shadow Realm, so just bear with me here…) A strange-looking, silent creature slipped out of the void. "Who has awoken the Shadow Realm?" it asked.

"It is I, Voldemort," he said simply. The monster paused and nodded slowly. 

"So, Voldemort, what do you want with the duel monsters that reside within the Shadow Realm?"

An evil grin spread over Voldemort's face. "I would like you to call the strongest team of evil duel monsters to hunt down the boy named Harry Potter, and kill him. Preferably before he reaches his destination, the school called Hogwarts."

An equally evil smile appeared on the duel monster's face. "As you wish, Voldemort." And with that it was gone. Minutes later, the room was normal again, all traces of the summoning vanished.

~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*

The train ride remained uneventful. Around noon, a plump witch pushing a cart laden with different foods came into their compartment. "Anything off the cart, dears?"

Kaiba was starting to tell off the witch for calling him a 'dear', but instead he gave a loud yelp as Joey flung himself past everyone else and said, "Ooh, I'll have some!"

Everyone sweatdropped. Joey turned around and said, "What? A guy has a right to be hungry, you know!"

"Well, don't waste _too_ much of your money," Ryou cautioned. "We don't know what we might need to use it for at school."

Joey probably hadn't even heard him, he was picking through the stuff and exclaiming things in a loud voice.

After everybody had paid for their snacks, they sat down and unwrapped them.

"Bertie Bott's Every Flavor Beans? Are they jellybeans or something like that?" Joey asked, peering at the package that Kaiba held in his hand.

"You'll want to be careful with those," Ron said.

"When they say every flavor, they really mean every flavor," Harry said. "There are the normal ones like chocolate and peppermint, but then they have spinach and grass too. Dumbledore got an ear-wax flavored one before."

"Umm…I think I'll pass on that," Kaiba said, tossing the bag aside.

Joey snatched it up. "I'll have 'em!" He ripped open the bag and popped a jellybean into his mouth. He promptly spit it out. "Ew! Onion!"

Everyone snickered.

"Well, you can't say we didn't warn you," Ron snickered.

Yugi unwrapped a Chocolate Frog and picked up the card. "What's this?" he asked, holding it up.

"It's one of the Chocolate Frog trading cards. See what it is, I'll trade you one if it's one of the ones I don't have yet," Ron said.

"Albus Dumbledore," Yugi read. "Hey, isn't that the headmaster of Hogwarts?"

Harry nodded. "It was the first one I got too."

~~What kind of food do these people eat anyway??~~ Bakura demanded.

Ryou shrugged mentally. ~I don't know.~

After everyone had finished their snacks, they started up another game of Exploding Snap.

After about half an hour, Yami suddenly stopped putting down cards. Everyone stared at him. "Hey, Yami, your turn's not over yet," Joey said, tapping him on the shoulder. (A/N: I don't know how Exploding Snap goes. J.K. Rowling didn't explain it in detail.)

Yami didn't answer.

"Yo, Yami!" Joey said, louder.

"I sense a darkness approaching," he said, his eyes narrowing. "It feels like the Shadow Realm."

"Um…" Everyone exchanged glances and looked at Ryou for input from his yami.

~~Yes, I sense it too. The Pharaoh's not just interpreting information wrong this time. Like he usually does.~~

"Bakura senses it as well," Ryou said, ignoring the last part.

"Darkness?" Joey questioned.

But there was no time for either Yami or Ryou to answer, for right at that moment a Curse of Dragon came swooping down on the train. They heard people screaming in the other compartments.

"Is that a Curse of Dragon?" Kaiba asked, mystified. "How did it get out of the Shadow Realm?"

Yami frowned. "I'm not sure…someone must have opened it again. And apparently, it's something evil," Yami added, ducking as the Curse of Dragon landed on the top of their compartment and making a circular dent on the roof.

Harry poked his head in from the compartment in front of them. "Um, you know what that is?" he asked, pointing at a swordsman.

Kaiba and Yami answered at the same time. "Neo the Magic Swordsman." Then they both glared at each other. 

"Harry, you, Ron, and Hermione are all welcome to come in here," Ryou offered. "It'd be safer than just being alone."

Yami shot a death look at Ryou at the mention of Hermione's name, but he didn't really complain.

"The train's being taken over by duel monsters!" Kaiba exclaimed.

"What are duel monsters?" Hermione asked, intrigued.

"That," Yami said, pointing at the swordsman. "And that." He pointed at the dent in the ceiling. 

A Dark Elf came into the compartment. "I have strict orders to…" She trailed off as soon as she saw Yami, who was glaring with such ferocity that everyone else felt like cowering into a corner. Then she turned and ran right out of the room.

Yami sighed. "I was afraid this was going to happen…"

"What, the train being taken over by duel monsters?" Joey asked. "I mean, you're not psychic. That's Shadi's job."

Yami groaned. "I will resist the urge to whack you," he muttered. "I was talking about them finding me, anyway. SO WILL YOU SHUT UP AND LET ME THINK?"

"Ok, man, you yell loud when you panic…" Joey muttered.

"But why are they even here in the first place? Is it another plot so someone can get all seven Millennium Items?"

Yami shrugged. So did Ryou.

"So, why are you worried about them finding you?" Kaiba asked.

Yami growled. "Some duel monsters aren't exactly on the pharaoh's side…maybe you should all get out of here."

"Let's not," Ryou said. "Bakura may be of some help, and we'll all be weaker if we just all go stampeding off to who-knows-where on this train."

Yami shrugged. "Fine with me," he said, glaring at the Ring. "Just make sure he doesn't try to steal my Puzzle in all this mess."

~~Does he really think I'm so stupid as to take my attention off an opponent just to get his Puzzle?~~

~It's what you acted like before, Bakura. Don't take it so hard.~

~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*

The Dark Elf scurried down the compartments, trying to find the leader of the attack, Ansatsu. She found him strolling down the compartments, observing his monsters.

"Sir, we have a bit of a problem in the last compartment…"

He growled. "What is it, Dark Elf?"

"There's a person in there that I'd like you to tell me how to defeat."

"Who?" he asked.

"The Pharaoh."

"The WHO???"

"The Pharaoh. I don't think our forces will be able to defeat him."

"Is there anyone else I need to worry about?"

"No, no one. Unless the tomb robber has also awoken inside the Millennium Ring, which I saw around a white-haired youth's neck."

"The pharaoh is our main worry. Go with four others to subdue him. We don't want him dead. Remember, Voldemort may want him for his plan." 

The Dark Elf curtsied and ran down the compartments, knocking over some other duel monsters and motioning a couple to follow her.

Outside the compartment, the Dark Elf signaled to the others to stay hidden until further notice. Then she marched in.

"Pharaoh," she acknowledged.

"What do you want?" he snarled and raised his hands, which began to glow a faint purple. The purple got deeper and brighter.

The Dark Elf sighed. "If you had heard me out, maybe this wouldn't have happened," she said lightly, and motioned for the other four to come out. They did, and attacked the former pharaoh with great force.

"Yami!" Ryou called. "Do you want Bakura to help?"

Yami shook his head. "Leave him out of this, I can handle it." Whirling, he caught the swordsman's right arm with his glowing hands. With a yell, he disintegrated back into the Shadow Realm. He then repeated the process with all four other monsters. He sighed in exhaustion. "Well, that took care of them…"

All of a sudden he felt something sharp strike his side, and he toppled over and hit a wall. The Dark Elf was satisfied, and she turned to Ryou. "You see? If the pharaoh couldn't defeat them, then the spirit that lives within your Millennium Ring will be unable to as well. Don't try anything." And she turned around. Everyone was glaring at her.

__

That was easy, she smirked. _Too easy._

All of a sudden, she felt fireballs strike her on the back. She whirled around. The Pharaoh was leaning against a wall, glaring at her. "I don't know _how_ all of you came back after I banished them to the Shadow Realm, but let me tell you, I don't give up that easily. Now if you want me to spare your life, you're going to get out of here." He narrowed his eyes. "_Now_."

"Yami…" Ryou hissed. "You might want to rethink this…leave it to Bakura maybe…"

Yami shook his head. 

"Suit yourself," the Dark Elf said. Soon, Yami was busy trying to banish all five monsters to the Shadow Realm, but it was hard when they somehow kept reappearing and there was also the fact that he was already injured. 

The Dark Elf yawned. "You know, this isn't even interesting," she said lazily. "I should just finish you off right now."

Yami gave her a venomous glare, but didn't have any time to say anything because Neo the Magic Swordsman had just taken a swipe at him with his sword. (A/N: Neo the Magic Swordsman is cool! But I didn't know what else to put there!) 

Harry, Ron, and Hermione were just staring at who they thought was Yugi. "You know, it doesn't look like any kind of spell that we've seen before…" Hermione said, frantically flipping through one of her large spellbooks.

A loud snickering noise attracted everyone's attention.

The Dark Elf was standing next to Yami, who was unconscious on the floor, for some reason.

"Ya-er, Yugi?" Ryou asked. There was no response. However, Harry, Ron, and Hermione were staring at him. 

"What were you about to say?" Harry asked.

"What? Nothing!" Ryou said.

"You said 'Ya-' something, and then you changed it to Yugi. Fill us in, will you? Were you about to say Yugi's brother's name?"

"I didn't say anything," Ryou insisted. Meanwhile, the Dark Elf was turning to leave with the others, satisfied that nobody else could stand up to them.

~~THAT'S IT!~~ Bakura shrieked. ~~I WON'T STAND FOR PEOPLE UNDERESTIMATING ME LIKE THAT! LET ME OUT! _LET ME OUT!!!_~~

Ryou sighed, there was no getting around his yami when he was in this kind of mood. He let Bakura take over, silently begging him not to do anything _too_ bad…

"All right, elf," he said, as the Dark Elf prepared to leave with the rest. "You're not going anywhere. You still have one more person to face. Me."

"You? Tomb robber, you're not even worth my time!" the Dark Elf protested.

Bakura narrowed his eyes dangerously. "Unless you're too scared to fight me?" he taunted. "That's it! You must be a chicken. You must be scared of me. Is that right?"

The Dark Elf got mad at this. "No one calls me a chicken!" she shrieked, and started to blast powerful balls of energy at him, which Bakura dodged with ease, smirking.

~~How the hell did the Pharaoh lose to _this_ wimp? He must be _really_ out of shape.~~

All of a sudden, an adult wearing shimmering teal robes Apparated into the compartment. 

"Professor McGonagall!" Hermione cried in relief.

"Professor, something happened, we were attacked, and-" Ron was babbling.

"Weasley! Make sense!" Professor McGonagall demanded. "What happened?"

The Dark Elf had vanished, along with the other monsters, and Bakura had gone back to the Ring when Professor McGonagall had come in, but Yami, being unconscious, had no way of switching with Yugi.

"Ask them!" Ron shrieked, completely confused. He pointed at Kaiba, Ryou, and the others. "They can explain it much better than we can!"

"No we can't!" Kaiba protested, but Professor McGonagall swooped down on them and demanded an explanation.

"Explain!" she said severely.

"Um, Professor…" Kaiba trailed off, Joey was open-mouthed in surprise, and Ryou was just standing there. Tea was hovering over Yami, looking worried.

"Allow me," Ryou said, cutting Kaiba off. Professor McGonagall looked at him. 

"Yes?"

"Um, it was a, er, _somewhat_ normal train ride up until halfway through, and then some duel monsters from the card game came out of the Shadow Realm and started attacking the train."

"Duel monsters? Card game? Shadow Realm?"

Ryou sighed and picked up Yami's deck, which had tumbled out from his pocket as he fell. "These," he said, showing the professor the cards. "This is the card game. And these are the duel monsters," he said, pointing at the pictures. "The Shadow Realm is pretty much…unexplainable…"

"And?"

"The Dark Elf came out of one of the cards, with four of her companions, and started attacking us. Since he has shadow magic," Ryou said, pointing at Yami, "they went after him." He didn't know how to explain the fact that Yami had been a pharaoh 5000 years ago, or about the tomb robber in his own Ring, so he skipped that. "And he wasn't strong enough to beat them." This was somewhat a lame explanation but she accepted it, basically not knowing what was going on anyway.

Professor McGonagall stooped to look at Yami. She prodded him gently with a finger, inspecting the gash in his side caused by Neo the Magic Swordsman's sword. "Hospital wing for him, definitely. And bed rest for the lot of you!" she said, sweeping her eye over the whole room. "And as for _him_…" Professor McGonagall studied the form of Yami carefully, "I think I'll have to have a chat with him about this magic of his. Shadow magic is not to be taken lightly. Does he study the dark arts?"

Everyone looked uneasily at each other and shrugged. Harry, Ron, and Hermione were looking lost, and Ryou knew they would be _very_ busy answering questions after this whole thing was over.

"Is there anyone else here that has shadow magic?" Professor McGonagall demanded.

"Professor," Ryou said. "I have shadow magic too…to some extent…"

Professor McGonagall eyed him curiously, then nodded. "Madam Pomfrey will tend to him," she said, gesturing to Yami. The rest of you- out of this compartment!" 

Not wanting to be left alone with the steely-eyed Professor McGonagall, they all rushed out of the car.

Madam Pomfrey bustled in with a whole bunch of bottles, bandages, and beakers. "My, my, he took quite a beating." She prodded and poked Yami's body, and started to apply all sorts of herbs and salves. "There," she said finally, giving her wand one last wave. "I think he'll be all right now."

"You think?"

"There's something about him…and that Ryou kid, that doesn't quite add up."

"Really?" Professor McGonagall frowned. She'd have to have a talk with them…

Yami started to stir. He stood up and opened his eyes.

"What's your name?" Professor McGonagall asked him.

Yami jumped. "Um…"

/Say my name! Say my name! Don't say your name! Don't say your name!/

"Yugi Motou," he said.

"Right. How are you feeling, Yugi?" she asked, frowning at him.

Yami winced. "I'm fine." 

"You're not supposed to be standing up!" Madam Pomfrey scolded. "You need a good night's sleep, maybe more. We have to get you up to the castle, but since this train's broken down from the attack, we're going to have to transport this whole thing over to the arrival gate…"

Yami was completely lost. He had no clue what they were talking about. "What about the monsters?" he demanded.

"Monsters? What? Oh yes," Professor McGonagall said. "They're gone."

To her surprise, Yami scowled deeply and started mumbling something about how the tomb robber always had to go and steal the show.

"Excuse me?" she asked.

"Nothing," Yami said quickly.

"Well, if you're _sure_ you're all right, then I guess you can go join your friends," Madam Pomfrey said, pointing disapprovingly at the other compartment. "Are you _sure_?"

"I'm FINE!" Yami yelled, and exited the compartment.

"He's certainly a feisty one," Madam Pomfrey said, shaking her head as they watched him leave.

Ok…that was not such a good chapter…I sort of lost it halfway through. I tried to make it a little funny but I guess I didn't do such a good job. Since I was really hyper when I wrote this, and I was too lazy to go back and edit it, it might not make sense, and it might not be as good as the other chapters. But hey, at least there's a chapter!

****

New Author's Notes: Chapter still sucks. -_- Oh well. I did the best I could.


	7. Explanations

Notes: Sorry for the long wait. And now to answer a very popular question. Ok…a lot of you said, "I don't think Yami would have lost to a bunch of duel monsters." That's true…but it's part of the plot. (Yami: Plot? What plot? DMG: *throws him in a closet* Ahem. Yes, plot.) Don't worry, he won't lose to any more duel monsters in the future…*grins* Unless I get on another sugar-high and have no clue what I'm writing…*sweatdrops*

****

Thanks to my reviewers, Tatsutahime, blue dragon, Whatever, ^_^, Alaena Flame Dragonstar, Phantom, Yami's Girl 3000, Yana, Evergladelord, Arian Starswing, Anya, darkmagic, and Serenia! 

Whew, that was quite a list…probably the most reviews I've received for a single chapter… 

I'm feeling nice today, so I'll respond to some reviews…

Whatever- Ooh, all capitals. Interesting. Yup, this chapter is the "talk". 

^_^- Thanks for the…*counts on fingers* …three reviews. Really encouraging…I updated, see?

Phantom- Yes…very hard to believe. He won't lose to any more Duel Monsters again…I did think of, at one point, about making him summon some Duel Monsters…but I decided against it, it would make the chapter too long. And no, the professor doesn't know about shadow powers…but at the end of this chapter, she'll know!

Yami's Girl 3000- Hilarious review…wow, you've got 15 Dark Elves? *mouth hanging open*

Yana- I hate it when that happens too. It really gets on my nerves…

Evergladelord: Uhh…crystal clear. Don't worry, I wasn't planning on hurting Ryou anyway.

Disclaimer- Don't own YuGiOh.

****

New Author's Notes: Ended it a bit differently, edited the Shadow Realm scene with the Kuriboh, and added a few lines. Generally more humor than before.

Chapter 7

Explanations

In the other compartment, Ryou was busy trying to fend off many questions that he couldn't answer or he'd end up spilling everything. One of the questions Ron had was, "What the _hell_ just happened in there?"

That, of course, was _very_ unexplainable, and he knew that he and Yugi would both be interrogated by the teachers at Hogwarts, as soon as they got off the blasted train…which didn't even _remotely_ resemble a train anymore.

Train?

"Hey, how are we going to get to the school?" Ryou asked, cutting off the stream of questions. "The train's broken down, hasn't it?"

Kaiba shrugged, Harry and Ron both exchanged confused looks, and Joey muttered an "I don't know". But Hermione, in a superior know-it-all voice, started explaining about transportation spells and a lot of other random spells that even Ryou knew did not have anything to do with his question. Out of the corner of his eye, he saw Yami glaring venomously at Hermione.

Ron noticed this as well, and tapped Hermione on the shoulder. 

"What?" she snapped, annoying at him cutting off her speech.

Ron simply pointed at Yami, who was looking really ticked off at her, and she shut her mouth. But then she buried her nose in a book again, apparently searching for the spell that Yami had used to send the monsters back to the Shadow Realm.

Ryou went over to her and snatched the book out her of hands. In response to her glare, he said, "You're not going to find that spell in any book of yours. I think."

Hermione stared. "But the library's never let me down before…"

Ron said, "Well, maybe not, except for that time last year when there was absolutely nothing in any of the books on how to survive for an hour underwater…"

Before the two could get into a fight, Harry intervened. "Knock it off, you two," he said. "And…" he said, just realizing what was missing. "Where's Yugi?"

"Uh…" Yami said, at a loss of words.

Ryou groaned. Then he thought of something. "I'm sure Yugi just got on another compartment…he can't be far from here! Me and Yami will go look, okay?"

Harry eyed them suspiciously. _Something's not right here…_

The two hurried out to the next compartment, which was, fortunately, empty. All of the others had rushed as far away as possible from the loud BOOMS coming from the last compartment.

"Yami, you're going to have to be a little more careful from now on if you don't want to be caught," Ryou scolded him.

"I know, I know…"

"Just get Yugi and let's get back!" Ryou said.

Yami and Yugi split, and they both went back into the compartment.

Everyone was surprised. "That was fast," Ron commented. "Where were you, Yugi?"

"Um…running away with everyone else," he lied. 

Someone would have said something eventually, but all of a sudden a voice blared from somewhere around the ceiling. Ryou squinted at the compartment roof, trying to figure out where the voice was coming from.

"We have arrived at Hogwarts, please leave your luggage on the train, it will be taken to the school separately."

They all made their way to the front of the train where Professor McGonagall immediately swooped down upon Yugi and Ryou.

"You two are going to have a little talk with the headmaster…" she told them. Then, noticing Yami, she blinked. 

//Aibou, what do I do?? Go back into the Puzzle?//

/Uh…./ Yugi racked his brains desperately for a plan, but none came to mind. He looked at Ryou, who shrugged helplessly.

"Who is this?" she demanded of Yugi. "He looks almost exactly like you."

"Umm…he's…my twin brother," Yugi suddenly blurted out. Ryou raised an eyebrow at him.

~~Twin brother?? Those two are in a _lot_ of trouble…I can tell that already.~~

Professor McGonagall frowned. "Well…then I suppose he'd better come with both of you. The rest of you may proceed to Hogwarts- just follow the crowd. You three, follow me."

Ryou inwardly groaned. ~How long is it going to be before our whole secret is revealed?~

~~I don't know. Count the minutes.~~

Ryou, Yugi, and Yami followed Professor McGonagall into the castle. Ryou gasped at the size of the entrance hall- he couldn't even begin to wonder how many houses could fit in it. To the right was a cheery, brightly-lit room that was filled with dozens of robe-wearing students all laughing and talking happily with one another. There was a staircase leading upward to the right of that doorway, which the professor went up.

After a lot of counting of minutes, and a lot of walking, they finally reached a rather ugly gargoyle statue.

"Jelly Slugs," Professor McGonagall barked at the statue. It must've been a password, because it jumped aside- well, more like inched aside, revealing a spiraling staircase. She ushered them up it until they were face-to-face with a door, no doubt leading into the headmaster's office. Ryou gulped.

~~Nervous, are we?~~

~You would be too if you were in this kind of situation.~

~~Would you be willing to place a bet on that?~~

~Sorry, I don't have any money on me at the minute, it's all in that trunk.~

~~The professor wants you, Ryou…~~ Bakura warned, and cut the connection.

Professor McGonagall was staring at him pointedly, holding open the door.

"Whoops," he muttered softly, and entered. Yugi and Yami were already seated. The headmaster had a long, crooked nose and a beard. Ryou sat in the last remaining chair, hoping that what was coming wouldn't be _too_ bad.

"My name is Professor Dumbledore," he said. "And Professor McGonagall has informed me that the two, er, three of you have, ah…unusual magic." 

The three of them remained silent.

"Would you please elaborate on this magic?" Dumbledore asked.

The three looked at each other. Yami immediately said, "Don't look at me." Yugi didn't really look too enthusiastic about it. So, once again, it was Ryou who was explaining the whole thing to the professors.

He started with explaining the history of the Millennium Items. (A/N: I'm lazy. I don't want to write all of that.) When he finished with that, they looked fairly interested. "Continue," Dumbledore said.

Ryou pulled the Millennium Ring from underneath his sweater where he kept it so it wouldn't attract attention. "This is one of the Millennium Items, called the Millennium Ring," he explained. "Yugi's is called the Millennium Puzzle."

"Wait," Professor McGonagall interrupted. "I thought you said these Millennium Items were one of a kind. If that's true, then why do those two have the same item?" she asked, pointing at Yugi and Yami.

"I was getting to that," Ryou said. "Not all of the Millennium Items house a spirit within them. However, these two items in particular do. These spirits used to live in Ancient Egypt before the ceremony that created the Millennium Items."

"And who are these spirits?" Dumbledore inquired.

"Well…you've already met one of them," Ryou admitted.

"Who is it?"

"Him," Ryou said, pointing at Yami.

"You said _spirits_, correct?" Dumbledore asked, peering at Yami from half-moon spectacles. 

"Yes," Ryou said.

"Well, if he's supposed to be a spirit, then why is he solid?" Professor McGonagall burst out.

"Well, these spirits can split from the host's bodies when they want to, and take on a solid form," Ryou explained. "My yami doesn't particularly like going around outside. Besides, if he ever went outside, I'd be hard pressed to keep him from stealing something. When he was back in Ancient Egypt, he was a tomb robber," he explained, seeing the confusion on their faces. 

Yami snorted, and Yugi grinned.

Yugi picked off where Ryou left off. "And, well…my yami just likes going around outside," he said. "But that usually complicates things with people who don't know about the Millennium Items."

"And what was he when he was back in Ancient Egypt?" Professor McGonagall asked, pointing at Yami.

"He was the Pharaoh, which explains the stuck-up attitude that he displays all the time," Bakura jumped in, splitting from Ryou. 

"Stuck-up??" Yami said hotly. "Excuse me?"

"It's an inappropriate characteristic for someone who can't even defeat a few Duel Monsters," Bakura teased.

Yami growled. He'd hit a sensitive point. 

"Yami, stop it!" both Ryou and Yugi shouted at the same time.

"Who, me?" Bakura turned and asked, trying to look innocent, or at least put on a straight face. "What did I ever do?"

"Only insulted me straight to my face," Yami muttered, and within seconds they were throwing insults at one another again.

"Uh…are they always like that?" Professor McGonagall asked, watching them scream at each other at the top of their lungs.

"Well…it doesn't usually get this loud," Yugi admitted. "I supposed Bakura really got to Yami there…"

"So that's his name," Dumbledore muttered. "All right, about this magic," he said, raising his voice to be heard over the fighting. "What kind of things can you do?"

"Well, uh…" Ryou thought. "The Ring can locate other Millennium Items and summon Duel Monsters as well as a few other things that don't really have any connection to each other but are very helpful. Oh yes, and it can help us walk through walls…" (A/N: What DOES the Millennium Ring really do?? I never quite figured it out except for the locating and summoning things…)

"The Puzzle can summon Duel Monsters too, and it can also banish people to the Shadow Realm with an attack called Mind Crush," Yugi said.

"Shadow Realm?"

"Uh…" Ryou started, not really knowing how to explain.

"We sort of have to show you for you to get the idea," Yugi explained.

"All right then," Dumbledore said.

"But it might hurt a little," Ryou said. ~~Bakura, can you-~~

Without warning, however, Bakura threw out a hand and sent them all to the Shadow Realm.

"Yami!" Ryou cried indignantly. "I didn't finish explaining yet!"

Bakura shrugged, then yelped as something brown and fuzzy rammed into him. "Ouch!" he shrieked.

He glared at Yami to see a Kuriboh floating around next to him, apparently getting on Yami's nerves as well. It was bouncing all over him, making weird noises.

"Don't make me do something drastic," Yami growled at it, but it ignored him and kept making funny sounds.

"Oh, so the great and almighty pharaoh has a _Kuriboh_ getting on his nerves?" Bakura snickered. 

"You watch it," Yami retorted. Then a sweet smile that did not bode well for Bakura appeared on his face. "Kuriboh, do me a favor and bring me back some of that tomb robber's _lovely_ white hair, will you?"

Bakura shrieked. Of course, he loved his hair, and it had taken him a while to fix it "just right" so he could look evil. He was _not_ going to have some Kuriboh rip half of it off his head because the _Pharaoh_ had told him to!

Dumbledore and Professor McGonagall were staring around the place. Well, more at the fuzzy brown creature that was the source of irritation for both Bakura and Yami. Irritation as the understatement of the century.

"What's that?" Professor McGonagall asked, pointing at the Kuriboh that was chasing Bakura around.

"Oh, it's a Kuriboh," Ryou explained.

"It's a duel monster," Yugi said. "From the card game Duel Monsters." He held out his deck to the professors, who examined it and handed it back.

Ryou tapped Bakura on the shoulder. "Now can we please go back?" he asked.

"Anything to get away from that stupid fuzzball!" Bakura grumbled, swatting it away. "OW!" The Kuriboh had bitten him. But before the Kuriboh could do anything else, he flung out a hand and brought them all back.

"Well, is there anything else that needs explaining?" Ryou asked.

"Yes, well, are these two dangerous?" Dumbledore asked, pointing at the two yamis who were still fighting, now over the Kuriboh.

"_You set that thing on me_!" Bakura roared.

"Well, excuse me for thinking it was amusing."

"The next time I see a Kuriboh, I'll tell it to bite your wonderful crimson spike in half, and then we'll see what _you_ do."

"If you dare even _think_ that, I'll Mind Crush you," Yami threatened.

"But I can always find my way back. You do know that, right? Not once have you succeeded in keeping me there for all eternity like everyone else you've sent there."

"Then don't make me render you _incapable_ of escaping," Yami snarled.

"I'd like to see you try!"

"Yami, stop that," Yugi snapped at Yami. "Not most of the time," he added to Dumbledore. "But if they get mad, then you'd better watch out."

"What should you do if they get mad?" Professor McGonagall asked, looking a little worried.

"Well, there's nothing much you _can_ do except hide somewhere safe, preferably where they can't find you, and either wait for them to calm down, or call us so we can convince them to settle down." Ryou grinned.

"Well, all right then," Dumbledore said. "I think I've heard enough, now I just need to process all this information…"

"Uh, Professor?" Ryou asked Dumbledore.

"Yes?"

"Well, I was thinking. I never got an acceptance letter, and I was thinking that maybe it was a mistake for us to come here? After all, the only magic that I know of is the shadow magic that we just showed you."

Dumbledore smiled at him. "We would not have told Harry to bring you here if we were not sure of your wizarding capabilities," he informed Ryou. "And the same goes for you, Yugi. And now I suggest that you go down to the feast, which should be ending, and try on the Sorting Hat. It won't be done publicly, seeing as how that discussion took quite a while, but you still need to be Sorted into the appropriate Houses."

Ryou's head was spinning. _What? We need to be Sorted into _what_???_

"Professor McGonagall will escort you downstairs," Dumbledore said. 

"Follow me," Professor McGonagall said to Yugi and Ryou. "And for heaven's sakes, please _get those two to be quiet_!"

/Yami, shut up./

~Yami, shut up.~

//Why should I?//

~~Is there a _reason_?~~

/The reason is that we're LEAVING, and unless you want to be locked in here, without food, for ages and ages, or at least until term starts next year…/

//Wait for me!!!//

~Oh, come on…I'll let you terrorize some first years if you do.~

~~_Really_? You mean it, right? No other terms?~~

~None.~

~~YES!! I'm coming!~~

Next chapter is obviously the mini-Sorting. Please review! Oh yeah, and this is the last chance to tell me what houses you think they should be in. Next time we'll find out which Houses the rest of them got into, and we'll see which ones Ryou and Yugi get into. 


	8. The Sorting

Notes: This is a long, long, _long_ chapter. Well, maybe not that long. But still, this is one of my longer chapters. Enjoy!

I CAN'T BELIEVE I GOT 70 REVIEWS!!! *glomps reviewers* You're the best! Thanks! I never even expected to get this many reviews -_- *hands out Ryou and Bakura plushies to everyone*

Yami: A little too late for that. You were supposed to do it when you had 50 reviews.

DMG: So?? I'm special, so I do it this way!!

Bakura: Special? Ha!

DMG: *drops Yami and Bakura off the edge of the Empire State Building* Ahem. Anyway, thanks again! *winks*

****

~*~Thanks to my reviewers, Silver Angel, Alaena Flame Dragonstar, Jessica, Jase Shadowstar, axis, anonymous, kassy, Evergladelord, Arian Starswing, gr, casey, Sarah, Krystie, FireSenshi, and yeshiv@*@k@*m@liklover!~*~ And, uh…if I missed you, sorry, I can't find anybody in this mass of reviews.

Review Responses:

Alaena Flame Dragonstar: ^_^ Kuriboh explode on contact with the enemy. Yami isn't an enemy, so it doesn't explode. Well, that's my very strange explanation for it, anyway.

Jessica: Uhh…that's the point of a fanfic. I _know_ Harry said that he had no relatives that he knew of. But, he didn't _know_ that Ryou was his relative until his fifth year, and he said that in the first book. Besides, in a fanfic, you can make up your own plot. (Sorry if I sounded a little snappy there.)

Tatsutahime: Whoa…thanks! How much research did you have to do to get all that? And…*sweatdrop* Yami Bakura likes raw, bloody meat? *shudder* Thanks again! ^_^

yeshiv@*@k@*m@liklover: Awww. Well, Malik's in this chapter, so you don't need to worry ^_^ I think I missed that episode though…don't remember seeing it. -_- I hope it replays soon, it sounds more interesting than all the other episodes I've seen before. 

Evergladelord:

Yami: NOOOOOOO!!! NOT THE EVIL KURIBOHS OF DOOM!

Bakura: *doesn't bother to say anything because he is running as fast as he can away from the fuzzballs*

Yugi: THEY'RE SO CUTE!!! *snuggles Kuribohs*

Everyone but Yugi and DMG: *is staring*

Yami: Cute? You mean annoying.

DMG: Uhhh…whatever you say Yami. I think they're cute.

Yami: AAGH!!! NOOO!!! COME BACK TO OUR SIDE!!! *makes frantic beckoning motions*

DMG: Uhh…whatever.

Kuribohs: *go on chasing Yami and Bakura*

DMG: Uh, thanks for the review…*sweatdrop* Hey, cut it out! Do you know how much hair gel it must have taken Yami to get his hair like that? *swats away Kuribohs*

Yami: -_- I don't use hair gel. It's natural.

DMG: Yeah right. Hair doesn't just _grow_ like that.

Yami: Yes it does!

DMG: -_- No it doesn't. And what I say goes, because I'M the authoress!

Yami: Bah. 

****

New Author's Notes: Definitely not many changes here. The bucket scene is more humorous though, I think. And again, I took out all mentions of Tea and Mai.

Chapter 8

The Sorting

Professor McGonagall led the two of them down to the Great Hall where there were a few remnants of the previous feast. There were lots of golden dishes and goblets, which were, amazingly, sparkling clean with no traces of food or dust. The walls were decorated with banners and tapestries. One had a badger on it, one had a lion, one had a serpent, and one had an eagle. A tapestry that hung above the largest table showed the Hogwarts crest. There was also a man, probably a professor, about to carry out a frayed, ragged hat. Ryou's first impression was, _Whoa, he's _tiny_! _

"Wait a minute please!" Professor McGonagall called out to him.

The man turned around. "Ah, Minerva, the new students, I suppose," he said cheerily. "My name is Professor Flitwick. I teach Charms here at Hogwarts." He beamed at both of them. Then, to Professor McGonagall, "Where did they come from again?"

"Domino City, Japan," she said. To the two of them, she said, "All you do is try on the hat, and you will be Sorted into one of our four houses."

Ryou and Yugi both stared at the hat. "We just try it on??" Ryou questioned.

Professor McGonagall nodded. "Come on, we don't have all day."

"You can go first, Ryou," Yugi said nervously.

"Hey, it's not like it's going to bite you or anything," Ryou joked, and put on the hat, sitting on the stool.

He nearly jumped three feet into the air when a small voice awoke in the back of his mind.

"Ah, so there are _two_ of you in here?" it asked.

Ryou, surprised, was speechless. Bakura, however, got mad.

~~And is there something _wrong_ with having two of us in here? It makes it all the easier to crush your mind to pieces if you say one wrong word,~~ he demanded.

The voice chuckled. "No, there isn't. But let's see here…a very strange personality combination, one side dark, one side light. I've never seen it before." The voice went silent until Bakura got impatient.

~~And so…?~~

"So you belong in GRYFFINDOR!"

Ryou winced, took off the hat, and hopped off the stool. 

"Gryffindor?" he inquired.

"One of the four houses," Professor McGonagall said promptly. "Mr. Motou, if you would try on the hat please?"

Yugi nodded and went over to the hat while Ryou continued asking questions.

"What are the four houses?"

"Gryffindor, Hufflepuff, Ravenclaw, and Slytherin," Professor Flitwick said. 

"And how are you chosen for these houses?" Ryou asked.

"Well, the hat takes a look inside your mind and decides where you should go…" 

"The hat judges your personality?" Ryou asked, surprised. "How?"

"Well, the founder of Gryffindor, Godric Gryffindor, took the hat from his head and put a spell on it to ensure that all the students would get put in the proper house when they were dead and gone," Professor McGonagall said.

All of a sudden, the hat shouted, "GRYFFINDOR!" and Yugi got off the stool, putting the hat back on it. 

"Yami got a little annoyed at the hat," Yugi chuckled.

Ryou grinned. "Bakura did too."

"I wonder which houses Kaiba and Joey got into," Yugi said.

"Well, we'll find out tomorrow."

"All right then, you're in my house," Professor McGonagall said. "I'll show you there."

Ryou and Yugi nodded, and followed her out of the Great Hall. Ryou's stomach suddenly rumbled.

"Er," he said meekly. "I don't think we had dinner yet."

Professor McGonagall said, "We have it all arranged. You missed the feast because of your talk with Professor Dumbledore, so we're bringing your food up to the common room."

"Umm…okay," Ryou said, and continued on their way. 

They got their first shock when they encountered a floating bucket.

"Peeves!" Professor McGonagall barked. "Get down from there now!"

A ghost with wicked-looking eyes and a wide mouth appeared out of thin air, holding the bucket of water, which he proceeded to dump all over Yugi.

Bakura snickered.

~Yami, that's not nice.~

~~So?~~

Ryou sighed mentally and turned back to Yugi, who was trying to get himself dry. His hair had lost its spikiness, instead trailing down his back like a girl's. Ryou had to admit, it looked hilarious.

"Peeves!" Professor McGonagall yelled. "Do you want me to go to the Bloody Baron?"

The poltergeist stuck his tongue out at the four of them and dropped the bucket, which landed on Yugi's head. Then he zoomed away.

"Ouch," Yugi said in a muffled tone, pulling the bucket off his head.

"That was Peeves, a poltergeist. The Bloody Baron, which is the Slytherin ghost, is the only one who can control him." Professor McGonagall added to Yugi, "You can get yourself dry in the dormitory. Your trunks have arrived."

Yugi nodded, and, still trying to wring out his shirt and fix his hair at the same time, continued to follow them. 

The second shock came when what appeared to be an empty picture frame turned into a brightly illustrated drawing of a fairy sitting on a mushroom.

Yugi and Ryou stared.

The fairy noticed and said in a cross tone, "What? Why are you staring at me?"

They both jumped.

Professor McGonagall was completely unaffected. "The pictures move around and visit each other sometimes," she said. 

"Oh," was all Ryou managed to say. 

They finally arrived at a painting of a fat lady.

"This is called the Fat Lady," Professor McGonagall said.

Yugi giggled. "She sure looks like one," Yugi muttered to Ryou. He nodded. 

"You have to have a password to verify that you're a Gryffindor," Professor McGonagall continued.

"Password?" the Fat Lady asked.

"Dark Magician," Professor McGonagall said, and the painting swung open.

Yugi's mouth dropped open. "Dark Magician? Well, that'll certainly be easy to remember…"

~~Yes, it will. Because the Pharaoh has crushed me with that card too many times to count.~~

"Well," Professor McGonagall said. "Your food's on the table, and when you want to go to bed you just go up the staircase and go in the door marked Boys' Dormitory for the fifth years."

"Okay then," Ryou said, and they clambered into the common room.

"Bye," Yugi called to Professor McGonagall, and they found the table with the food and began to eat.

"Wow, the food's pretty good," Yugi commented.

Ryou nodded. All of a sudden a blue blur shot past him, spinning him around in a circle. "Yugi!"

"Joey! You got into Gryffindor too?" Yugi asked cheerfully. Joey nodded and said hi to Ryou, who asked him where Kaiba was.

"Kaiba's in Gryffindor too, to my utter hatred," Joey said. "He's probably moping over the fact that none of his precious electronics will work near here."

Bakura laughed.

"Excuse me? Moping?" Kaiba asked, coming over from a table where he had been reading a book. Then he raised an eyebrow at the mess that was Yugi's hair.

Yugi groaned, running a hand through it and trying vainly to get it up to its original shape. "Peeves dropped a bucket of water on me, bucket and all," he explained. "It'll be back to normal by tomorrow morning, when it dries out."

"Well, look at that!" Joey said. "He's actually not moping!" And within seconds they were in another one of their fights, insults flying.

There was a thumping on the stairs and Harry, Ron, and Hermione came down from the dormitories. "What is going on here?" Hermione demanded.

"Uhh, well," Ryou began.

They saw. "Well, you'll lose house points for fighting," Ron said.

"House points?" Yugi asked.

"Well, there's a contest between all four houses. At the end of the year, all the points are added up and whichever house has the most points wins the house cup."

"And I happen to be a prefect," Hermione said. "Harry is too."

"Ah," Ryou said, and sweatdropped. "Unfortunately, once those two start, you can't stop them until they stop themselves, prefect or not." 

Yugi grinned and asked, "Has Gryffindor won before?"

"Not before Harry came," Ron grinned. "After that we won every single year so far, except last year. We did win that one, but Cedric died, so we didn't have the usual celebrations."

"Cedric?"

"He was a student from Hufflepuff," Hermione said. "You-Know-Who killed him."

"Uhh…I don't know who. Who?" Yugi asked.

"Voldemort," Harry said, as if this would explain everything.

"_Who_?" Ryou asked.

"You don't know who You-Know-Who is?" Ron asked in amazement.

Harry nudged Ron. "Remember, I didn't know who he was either when I first started."

"Oh yeah…" Ron said.

"Well…there once was a wizard, who became, well…evil. And he started looking for followers…and he got them, because they wanted power, and that's what he had," Ron began.

"Why don't you say the name?" Harry demanded.

"Because I'm _scared_! Anyway, those were the dark ages, you didn't know who to trust, who was acting of their own free will, and who was acting under the Imperius Curse."

"Imperius?" Yugi asked.

"It's a controlling spell," Hermione quickly put in. "It's one of the three Unforgivable Curses- Avada Kedavra, Crucio, and Imperius."

"Sounds like Malik's Millennium Rod," Yugi whispered to Ryou.

"Yeah, except for they use a wand instead of a rod."

"Well, this wizard started to go around killing some very powerful wizards with the Avada Kedavra spell- The Killing Curse," Ron said.

"When I was around one, he came to my house," Harry said. "He used the curse on my parents and killed him. And the reason that I'm famous-"

"You're famous?" Yugi cut in.

"Well, yeah," Harry said sheepishly. "The reason is because it killed _everyone_, except me. And after he tried to kill me and failed, he fled and some people came out of trances…"

"Ah," Yugi and Ryou both said at the same time, not really understanding.

~~Sounds like a whole bunch of made-up junk to me.~~

~Yami, do you think they'd believe the stuff about ancient Egyptian pharaohs and tomb robbers living inside Millennium Items if we just dumped it on them right here and now?~

~~Well, I suppose not, but-~~

Ryou simply cut off the connection and turned back to the group, which was staring at him oddly with the exception of Yugi who gave him a questioning look. Ryou nodded slightly towards him.

"Does he often do that?" Ron demanded of Yugi, who shrugged. 

"Sometimes," was all he said.

This answer intrigued Harry, but he decided not to ask any questions. With his luck, he'd find out soon enough.

"Well, it's time for bed," Hermione finally said after an awkward silence. "I'll see you all tomorrow."

Everyone waved to her and she disappeared up the steps. Yugi and Ryou went right after her, declining Harry and Ron's invitation to play a game of wizard chess before bed. Joey and Kaiba decided to stay and watch, though they sat as far away as possible from each other.

//Wizard chess?//

/I suppose it's like chess, with a few different rules./

//Let's play!//

/No, I'm tired, and we have to have an early start tomorrow anyway. Maybe later./

//Oh, all right…//

Yugi and Ryou went up the stairs and into the dormitory where they found their trunks waiting at the foot of the beds.

"Nice service," Yugi commented, and Ryou grinned before they both got ready for bed and climbed into bed.

~*~*~*~*~*~*~

Ansatsu approached Voldemort tentatively. This did not seem like a person who would take a defeat lightly. He was most likely a person who dished out heavy punishments for failure.

Without turning, Voldemort said, "I trust that you have good news?"

Ansatsu gulped. "Well, not exactly…we ran into some…_resistance_ on the train."

"Resistance?" Voldemort chuckled lightly. "Who would dare stand up to you? Who _could_ stand up to you? I presume that you are nearly immune to spells, are you not?"

"Well, yes…"

"So how did they resist you? I find this very interesting."

"Well, long ago in Ancient Egypt, we were not trapped into cards like we are today. We roamed the lands freely, until evil sorcerers arose and began to use us for evil. So the Pharaoh decided to seal us into stone tablets, which worked for a while until the sorcerers figured out how to summon us from the tablets. These tablets were used for shadow games, and many people played simply for power. After a while, the Pharaoh decided to seal the monsters away permanently to prevent any more disasters. He sealed away the spirits of seven people into the Millennium Items, including himself. The people we encountered on the train were the hosts of two of the original seven spirits- the pharaoh himself, and another who used to be a tomb robber in Ancient Egypt."

"I see…" A pause. "Well, this is all very interesting. You may return to the Shadow Realm now, while I research some more on these Millennium Items. I will call you when you are needed."

Ansatsu bowed and disappeared into the Shadow Realm.

"Wormtail!" Voldemort barked. "Do some research on these…_Millennium Items_…and report to me with the information you find."

"Yes, Master," Wormtail squeaked, and fled to the bookshelves.

"I will eliminate this resistance, and then my path to the defeat of Harry Potter will no longer be blocked. He may have put up a struggle, but this time all his efforts will be in vain."

Then a long, cruel laugh pierced through the air.

~*~*~*~*~*~*~

Ryou awoke the next day to vigorous shaking and almost fell off the bed. "What time is it?" he muttered sleepily.

"It's almost time for breakfast, hurry up!" Harry said, peering at him. Ryou could hear Ron doing the same thing to Yugi.

"Agh…" Yugi muttered and tried to get out of bed. Instead, he toppled over because he was tangled in the sheets and fell off the bed with a loud THUMP. But at least his hair was back to its tri-colored spikes.

Everyone laughed. Bakura managed to snicker before apparently going back to sleep.

~Lucky, you get to sleep.~

~~Was it _my_ idea to go to this crazy school in the first place?~~

~Well, it wasn't mine either!~

~~Yes it was. And now you have to pay the price- loss of sleep.~~ With a final snicker, Bakura dropped back off to sleep.

Ryou got out of bed and put on his robes over his T-shirt and jeans. Yugi did the same, and they all went down the spiral staircase together. Hermione was waiting impatiently by the portrait hole. 

"Well, _finally_," she said.

"These two wouldn't get up," Ron said. "I guess they haven't adjusted to having to wake up at a set time."

"Well…" Yugi said. "Maybe that's it."

"Anyway, we'll show you down to the Great Hall. Hogwarts is so big that you'd get lost in it," Ron said.

"Thanks," Ryou said.

"Hey, where's Yami?" Harry questioned.

"Ummm…" Yugi seemed at a loss for words. "I guess he went off somewhere." It was a very inadequate answer, and Harry resolved to find out more. But for now, they had responsibilities to the new students.

On the way to breakfast they were stopped by three students. One had pale skin and white-blond hair. The other two were just big and ugly, and it was apparent that they unofficially served as the first one's bodyguards. 

"Well, well, Potter, looks like you've found yourself some new friends," he drawled.

"Back off, Malfoy," Harry said. To Ryou and Yugi he whispered, "That's Malfoy, and the two behind him are Crabbe and Goyle. As you can tell, we don't really get along." Ryou grinned, and Yugi nodded.

"Are _they_ Mudbloods too?" Malfoy asked. "I suggest you don't befriend this riffraff because with Voldemort on the loose, he'll come after the Mudbloods and Muggle-lovers first!"

"Shut up," Ron snapped.

//Oh I'm going to teach _him_ a lesson…// Yami was angered by the apparent insult to his aibou.

/Yami-/

Yugi tried to protest, but Yami seized control of the body. Harry noticed the change. Yugi's eyes got sharper and turned a shade of crimson, and his hair flared up more. _Who does that remind me of??_ he wondered. _I know I've seen him before somewhere…_

/Yami!!!/

Meanwhile, Ryou was having his own problems.

~~That boy is going to…to…~~ Bakura couldn't think of anything to say. That probably meant that Malfoy was going to be worse than dead when Bakura was done with him.

~Yami, no!~

Just then he noticed Yami take control of Yugi's body. ~~There's no way I'm letting _him_ have all the fun.~~ Bakura said. And then he took over.

Harry also noticed that change, although it was more subtle. Ryou's hair suddenly became messier and his eyes became more evil-looking.

Ron gasped. He muttered to Harry, "That's the one that was talking with Ryou the night before we left for Hogwarts."

"But that's not possible," Harry said to him. "You can't take over someone's body. Besides, where did he come from?"

Ron shrugged. "But there's something not right about him." He suddenly noticed that the other Ryou was staring at him, a look of understanding crossing his face before turning into a scowl. _Uh-oh_, he thought.

"What's a Mudblood?" Yami asked, drawing Bakura's attention away from Ron.

Hermione said, "It's a really foul name for a Muggle."

Yami and Bakura's eyes both narrowed. 

"Oh really?" Bakura asked dangerously. His hands began to glow a light purple. It was barely visible, but it was there. Malfoy, Ron, and Hermione apparently didn't notice. Harry did, though. And Yugi and Ryou both knew it.

__

Uh-oh, both Ryou and Yugi thought at the same time.

~YAMI! STOP THAT!~

Ryou managed to get back control first. A couple seconds later, Yugi managed to persuade Yami to give up control. All of them were staring, including Malfoy. And even he seemed at a loss of words.

"Weird," Ron muttered to Harry and Hermione. "It was like they were a whole other person…did you see how much their personality changed?" Hermione nodded. 

"Definitely."

Harry was staring at Ryou's hands. He could have sworn that they were glowing purple earlier…

"Uh…sorry about that," was the only thing Yugi could say, and that didn't explain _anything_.

/Yami, you're getting us in trouble. I _told_ you you should have stayed inside the Puzzle that day./

//Was _I_ supposed to know that some little detective would come along and discover our secret?//

/Yes! You _were_ the pharaoh you know!/

//And that means…?//

Yugi was spared the response by Ron's hand waving around in his face. "Hello! Earth to Yugi!"

"Oh, sorry, I was sort of spacing out there," he said sheepishly. "Let's go."

They left a very confused Malfoy standing there watching them go.

Ron chortled. "The expression on his face when you two did that was _priceless_! He looked like a clueless ape!"

Hermione snorted. "Clueless ape?"

"Or something like that."

They were so busy talking that they ran into someone near the entrance to the Great Hall.

"Sorry," Harry said.

But the stranger didn't listen to him, he was staring at Ryou with lavender eyes. "Bakura?"

"_Malik_?" 

I'm very evil, aren't I? I leave you off just as they meet Malik… Sorry I didn't introduce him until this far into the story. I sort of didn't know what to do with him. But now he's here! *grins* 

****

This is an important note: School's almost over, so finals are coming up -_-. And I have a piano competition in less than 2 weeks, so I have to practice for that and won't have time to write out the next chapter. I can't promise regular updates until school gets out around June 20th (when I can start writing to my heart's content). But I'll try to get out another chapter before then. But it's not likely -_-. Thanks for your patience! ^_^


	9. Potions and Divination

Notes: 

Review Responses:

yeshiv@*@k@*m@liklover: Eh heh heh…*twitch* Nice to see that you like this story…well, here's your update. And exactly on June 20th.

evil woman of thousands of knives: …I swear that you and yeshiv@*@k@*m@liklover are both out to get me. Ah well, here's your update.

Abbicat14: That's a really great idea, but I don't think I'm going to use it for this fic. Sorry ^_^

Sarah: Eep. Yeah, I wish that too, but then they wouldn't get nearly as many reviews ^_^

To DJ Silence Yuy, Stella Wind, and DarkSpellCaster: Thanks for the reviews and the encouragement. I actually did pretty good ^_^

DragonMaiden: Not a problem ^_^

****

A little question here…Who should be the Defense Against the Dark Arts teacher? I need a little help there…I want to keep the level of OCs down to a minimum.

Disclaimer:

DMG: THE FIFTH HARRY POTTER BOOK IS COMING OUT TOMORROW!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! YAY! YAY! YAY! *pauses* And it doesn't belong to me…awww…*pouts*

Yami: And she doesn't own us either! And I'm very glad of that because we probably wouldn't like it -_-

DMG: *still bouncing*

Yami: She had too much sugar. -_-;;;

****

New Author's Notes: Nope. Almost no changes here. A few lines, and that was it. I'm afraid I can't edit Chapter 10 because I did it at a friend's house over the summer, but this is an (almost) full set of editions. And it took me a while too. .

Chapter 9

"Who?" Harry asked confusedly, but Ryou and Yugi didn't hear him. They were busy asking Malik how he had gotten to Hogwarts.

"I got some letter, and next thing I knew, Isis was shoving me off here." Malik rolled his eyes.

"Which house are you in?" Ryou asked.

"Slytherin," he said, with a tone of disgust. "The people in that house are _ridiculous_. Especially that Malfoy person." At this, Harry, Ron, and Hermione grinned.

They went into the Great Hall. Ryou asked Malik in a low tone, "Did you tell Professor Dumbledore about your yami?"

Malik shrugged. "I don't really see any need of it." He paused. "Did you tell Professor Dumbledore about yours?"

Ryou and Yugi both nodded. 

"Well, here's the Gryffindor table," Harry said when he reached it. "The Slytherin table is over there." He pointed.

"I have to sit with _them_?" Malik exclaimed. "No way!"

"Well, yeah. It's the rules," Hermione said.

While they were bickering, Fred Weasley came down to their end of the table and handed around schedules. He looked at Malik. "I don't think I have a schedule for you," he said.

Malik just shrugged and went on talking with Yugi and Ryou.

He paused to talk with Ron and Harry, then went back to the other side of the table.

"Oh, we have Potions first," Harry said, looking at his schedule. "And it's with the Slytherins, as usual…" he grumbled.

"Sounds interesting," Ryou commented.

Ron gave a dry laugh. "When you see what the teacher's like, you won't be thinking it's interesting anymore."

"Is it really that bad?" Yugi asked.

"Well…he treats the Gryffindors like dirt. And he really, really hates me," Harry said. "And he doesn't like Ron or Hermione either. Come to think of it…I don't think he likes anybody but the Slytherins."

"Sounds pretty good," Malik said.

"Well, you're a Slytherin," Harry said.

"Can't argue with that," Ryou said.

After breakfast, they all walked down to the Potions classroom, which was held in one of the dungeons.

"Whoa, that's creepy," Joey muttered.

Yugi muttered, "Tell me about it." When they entered the dungeon they took a seat by the cauldrons.

Snape finally swept into the classroom, glittering eyes sweeping the class and landing on Ryou, Yugi, Joey, and Kaiba. "Ah, the new students," he said smoothly. "I hope you aren't as clumsy and dim-witted as these other students are," he said. "But if you run into trouble, you can always ask a fellow Slytherin for help." He beamed at Malik. "I'm sure that Malik here won't mind lending you a hand if you run into any misfortune in my class…which I'm sure you will." He smirked and began the day's lesson. 

Kaiba and Joey both looked ready to strangle Snape. Malik was smirking. Ryou and Yugi were just rolling their eyes at the three of them. 

"What did he just call us?" Kaiba said through gritted teeth.

"I think it was something along the lines of clumsy and dim-witted," Yugi said. 

"We warned you," Harry muttered.

Yami and Bakura were both fuming silently in their respective soul rooms, but they refrained from jumping out and banishing Snape to the Shadow Realm. This was only because Yugi and Ryou had spoken to them about violence, and it wouldn't do for them to look like murderers when they hadn't even gotten past their first day yet.

Soon, the class was put to work making a Shrinking Solution. Harry sighed as he remembered that they had done this last year. He idly wondered whether Snape would use Neville's toad Trevor as an example again.

Yugi paired up with Joey, Ryou went with Malik, and Kaiba was stuck with Malfoy, to his utter hatred.

"Uh-oh, Kaiba looks mad," Joey whispered to Yugi as they watched Kaiba viciously pounding beetles, cringing as he mashed them, insides and all, into a flaky powder.

Ron overheard them. "I'd be angry too, if I got stuck working with Malfoy."

Malfoy, unfortunately, had heard all of this conversation and raised his hand to tell, when Bakura finally had enough.

~~That's it, I don't care anymore, I'm gonna kill that little twit-~~

~Whoa! Yami, calm down!~

Harry and Ron were giving him odd looks. Ryou smiled weakly and went back to trying to force Bakura back into the Ring. Yugi and Malik continued to prepare ingredients as if nothing out of the ordinary was happening. But meanwhile, Yami was shouting and throwing things at the walls of his soul room. Yugi winced.

/Uh…Yami…I would appreciate it if you would stop throwing things in my head. I might be able to concentrate a bit better./

Yami continued to grumble but stopped throwing things.

Snape spotted Malfoy's hand. "Yes?"

"Weasley and his little group of friends are insulting me," he said in an all too un-innocent voice. But, Malfoy being a Slytherin, Snape did not take any of this into consideration.

"Detention to all of you, _including_ you," he said, indicating Kaiba, Yugi, Ryou, Harry, and Hermione, who had all done nothing wrong. "And ten points from Gryffindor."

"Now wait just a second here!" Kaiba started to say, but Snape cut him off.

"Unless you wish to lose _more_ points from Gryffindor, I suggest you stop talking. After all, Gryffindor doesn't seem to have many points at the moment, do they."

Yami promptly began throwing glass vases into the walls of his soul room again, muttering something about revenge. But to Ryou's surprise, Bakura didn't do anything.

~~You don't have to be so surprised, Ryou. I'll get him back later. And it won't be pleasant for him.~~

Ryou sighed. ~What did I say about violence? Besides, what are you going to do to get back a full-fledged wizard?~

~~Who said I was going after Snape?~~

Ryou groaned. ~Let me guess. Malfoy.~

Bakura smirked and nodded.

Ryou sighed and gave up.

After Potions ended, they were all indignantly complaining about Snape.

"I can't believe we got detention, what did we do?" Joey asked.

"I dunno," Ron said. "He's just like that. One little thing goes wrong, he blames it on the Gryffindors and gives a whole bunch of them detention."

Malik grinned. "So there are some good points of being a Slytherin. At least I didn't get detention."

Everyone scowled at him.

Even Kaiba was annoyed, and that didn't happen much. "Just great. I could be making Yugi duel me again. But no, I have to be down there with that…that _teacher_, in _detention_!"

"Duel?" Harry asked interestedly.

"Yeah, Duel Monsters," Yugi explained. "They're really popular in Japan."

"Oh, never heard of it here," Hermione said. "What's it like?"

"It's the best game ever," Joey said. "We'll show you how to play sometime, if you'd like."  
"That'd be great," Harry said.

"Okay," Yugi said. "Now which class do we have next?"

"Divination," Harry moaned.

"We should have quit when we had the chance," Ron agreed.

"Why? What's so bad about it?" Ryou asked.

"It's just all fake," Hermione said. "I'm taking Arithmancy instead, so I'll see you at lunch." She left, while the rest proceeded all the way up to North Tower.

Ryou nearly choked on the heavily perfumed air when they finally entered the room. It was as hot as an oven in there. 

Moments later, Professor Trelawney emerged from the shadows, wearing shimmering green jewelry and green robes. "Welcome to Divination, the mystical art of foreseeing the future. My name is Professor Trelawney, for those of you who don't know." She indicated the five, Ryou, Yugi, Malik, Joey, and Kaiba. "Today we shall be starting out with something simple- the tea leaves. The rest of you may have done this before during your first year of Divination."

After she had gotten them all set up with tea leaves and cups, she swept around checking everyone's work. She caught Ryou and Yugi sitting and staring at the teacups as if they had no clue what to do.

She picked up Ryou's cup. "To give you an example, I will read your cup," she informed him. "Watch closely."

She peered into the cup, turning it occasionally. She muttered to herself before dropping the cup in horror.

Everyone's heads jerked up from the tables they had been bending over. Neville splashed tea all over the table he was working at. Harry was strongly reminded of himself in third year when she had said he had the Grim. He was almost sure that was going to happen now.

"My dear…you have the Grim," Professor Trelawney said in a dramatic voice.

__

I knew it, Harry thought.

Lavender and Parvati gasped and glanced at Harry, then at Ryou. A couple of other students did so too, but Harry, Ron, and a few others did not. 

"Excuse me- a _what_?" Ryou asked. 

"The dog that haunts graveyards! The omen of death! Do you not know what a Grim is?"

"Not…exactly…" Ryou was forced to admit.

~~Don't listen to her, Ryou. She doesn't seem very reliable.~~

"It is-" Professor Trelawney started to explain, but the bell rang just then and everyone scrambled out of the room.

Ryou sighed.

__

So far I've had a teacher who looks like an old glittery green lady, and a mean old teacher who desperately needs a shower, he thought. _I swear this school has something against me._

Well, no cliffhangers for once…suggestions about the Defense Against the Dark Arts teacher, please!


	10. Back to Dumbledore's Office

Notes: *faints* I went up from 98 to…*mouths drops open* 135 reviews with one chapter!!! *faints from sheer joy*

Yami: *picks up plushies and candy* Well…I guess we get these then…

DMG: No! DON'T YOU DARE!!! That stuff is for all the wonderful reviewers!! *takes it back*

Yami: But…I'm your favorite character!!

DMG: :p Nyah. If you review this story, I might give you some…

Yami: No way!! This story doesn't deserve my wonderful- OOF!

DMG: *is holding a big heavy newspaper over Yami's head* Well anyway…*gives out the plushies and candy* Thankies!!

Disclaimer: You don't know how much I wanna own YuGiOh…and Harry Potter too…but I don't, so don't you dare sue me!! I need that money for college!!

****

A Little Note: Sorry if Malik is a bit OOC. I'm not really up to figuring out personalities here. 

****

New Author's Notes: Okay, I fixed the "Ryou's dad is an archeologist" part, and took out all mentions of Mai and Tea. Not many changes here.

Chapter 10

Ancient History and Detention

After Divination, Ryou and the others followed Harry, Ron, and Hermione down to their next class, History of Magic. 

"It's the only class taught by a ghost," Ron explained as they were walking down. "His name is Professor Binns."

"And it's the most boring class ever," Harry said. "Me and Ron don't bother to take notes, we just copy off of Hermione's when it's time for exams."

Hermione gave them a disapproving look and then said, "I heard something about this year's topic being Ancient Egypt."

"Hey, Bill works in Egypt, I'll probably know a lot more than half of the class, not that it really matters because he never asks questions," Ron said excitedly.

~Ancient Egypt sounds like a pretty cool topic, doesn't it?~

~~Well, it certainly would be interesting if we didn't know all the facts about it already.~~

~True.~

"I wonder how much stuff about Ancient Egypt this Professor Binns person will get wrong," Malik said, yawning.

Hermione frowned. "I don't think anything he ever says is wrong, because I always get a good grade on the History of Magic exams with my notes."

Malik shrugged. "We'll just wait and see then."

They entered the classroom and took their seats, and Professor Binns began his daily ramblings.

Harry noticed that Ryou, Yugi, and Malik were paying extremely close attention. He and Ron began a game of Hangman, having nothing better to do. Therefore, it took him by surprise when Ryou suddenly said, "Excuse me Professor, but I think it was seven Millennium Items, not eight."

The whole class turned around to stare at him. Ryou blushed.

Professor Binns was clearly at a loss of what to do. Not a single student had ever interrupted his lecture to say something he said had been wrong. "Well, that's certainly a very interesting theory, Mr…"

"Bakura."

"As I was saying, that is a very interesting idea, Mr. Bakura, but I have taken from certain resources that fact that there are eight Millennium Items. I do not believe that these sources were wrong."

"The resources were wrong," Malik said. The class's eyes moved to him.

Professor Binns looked towards him. "Ah…so you believe in this theory of there being seven Millennium Items as well?"

Malik nodded.

"Well, I'm afraid that you two are-"

"There _were_ seven Millennium Items," Yugi spoke up.

"Guys, what are you doing?" Hermione hissed. "Professor Binns has never been wrong before!"

Malik turned indifferently towards her. "We happen to have first-hand experience at Ancient Egypt…we know our stuff pretty well."

Hermione opened her mouth to say something else, but was cut off by Professor Binns gliding across to Ryou, Malik, and Yugi, who were sitting together, and asking, "And how exactly are you so experienced about Ancient Egypt?"

Yugi opened his mouth uncertainly, not sure if they should tell him that they were in possession of three of the Millennium Items themselves.

Ryou beat him to it. "My dad's an archaeologist- a person who studies old things," he said, seeing Professor Binns' confused look. "He told us about this stuff."

"Oh…" Professor Binns said, returning up front. 

As Professor Binns retreated, Ryou caught sight of Malik and Yugi's confused glances at him. He mouthed "I'll tell you later" to them, and they nodded and returned their gazes to Professor Binns, who was looking at his notes again, trying to find a place to pick up his interrupted lecture.

At the end of the session, all of the students were looking at Ryou, Malik, and Yugi like they were smarter than Hermione. They had made several more corrections as the lecture went on, and all of them were correct. 

~The perks of sharing your body with a 5000-year old tomb robber.~ Ryou said. ~I knew it would come in handy sometime.~

~~Oh, so you just use me for History of Magic classes?~~ Bakura teased. ~~I'm insulted.~~

Ryou laughed and ended the conversation. Hermione was pestering Yugi and Malik with questions about Ancient Egypt. Malik looked annoyed. Yugi clearly had a "get me out of this situation NOW or I'll set Yami on you" look on his face. Ryou had to stifle a grin.

"Um…guys…which class do we have next?" Ryou asked in an attempt to change the topic of conversation. He directed the question mostly at Hermione.

"We have lunch," Hermione said, finally thrusting her History of Magic paper into her backpack. Yugi sighed in relief. 

"Great," Ryou said. "I'm starving." They headed off to the Great Hall, talking about classes and Duel Monsters.

After lunch, they had the rest of the afternoon off, though they had less time than the others because of Snape's detention. 

"I wonder what the detention will be like," Yugi wondered.

"It's not too bad," Harry said. "I've had dozens of them before. He mainly just makes you pickle stuff for his next class."

"Pickles?" Joey asked. "Yum."

Kaiba rolled his eyes. "Wheeler, is all you can think about food?"

"Uh…" Joey sweatdropped. 

"He makes you preserve stuff," Hermione said impatiently.

Ryou leaned over to Harry and asked, "She doesn't seem to be in such a good mood. Is she always like this after lunch?"

"No…" Harry replied. "She's usually okay after lunch. I think she's annoyed that someone knows more than her for once."

"Oh…but it's not really our problem, we just, er, my dad just told us."

Harry frowned. "Right." He was starting to get suspicious of them, but he chose not to voice his opinion.

//Yugi, I'm getting sick of sitting around in my soul room. Can I come out?//

/Not with everyone looking!!/ 

"Hey, where's Yami? I never see him around anymore…" Ron said.

"Oh…I…er…I dunno where he is," Yugi said. "He…said he had something to do…maybe he's in the library?"

//That was my perfect excuse to come out!! What did you do that for?//

/Do what?/ Yugi asked in a perfectly innocent voice.

//Never mind.// Yami grumbled.

"Oh…I wanted to talk to him…he looks an awful lot like you, Yugi. Are you related?"

"Oh…he's my…distant relative," Yugi lied. "We don't see each other a lot."

Malik snickered. "That was a total li-" At a warning look from Ryou, he fell silent.

Harry was confused. It sounded like Malik was about to say "That was a total lie". But Ryou had stopped him. They were obviously hiding something.

"Well, what do you want to do now?" Ryou asked quickly.

"We have our detention in about an hour," Kaiba said crossly. "Nothing much we _can_ do, can we?"

"We could have a duel," Yugi suggested.

Joey shot that idea down. "It's no good without the duel disks." 

"I guess you're right…"

While Yugi was thinking, Malik came over to Ryou. "What was with the archaeologist thing during History of Magic?"

"Well, I think that the less people who know about our power, the better. They've already got enough to deal with, what with this Voldemort person and all, without having to learn about us too. Besides, my dad _is_ an archeologist, so I'm not exactly lying. He even brought me the Millennium Ring from Egypt."

"You said you told Dumbledore-"

"We did, and Professor McGonagall, but they're the only ones who know," Ryou interrupted.

"I guess that makes sense…" Malik said.

"We should get down for the dungeons for Snape's detention," Harry said, standing up. He had heard broken fragments of their conversation, and it definitely sounded like they were hiding something. His suspicions were confirmed, unless they had a good reason for having a whispered conversation that had something to do with Voldemort and powers.

"Already?" Joey asked, surprised.

"Yeah." 

All of them stood up, including Malik. "Malik, you don't have a detention," Yugi said in surprise. "Where are you going?"

Malik shrugged. "Common room, I guess," he said, grimacing. "When will you guys be out of detention?" he asked, directing the question towards Harry.

"Umm…in about three hours."

"_Three hours_ with those idiots in Slytherin?!" Malik exclaimed. 

"That's a really long detention," Ryou said in surprise.

"That's how long most of the detentions here at Hogwarts are," Harry said.

"Aw man, I guess we'd better try to stay out of trouble then," Joey mumbled.

The group set off towards the dungeons.

"I'm going to have a lot of fun with Malfoy during your detention," Malik said.

"Malik, you're not thinking of using your Rod on him to make him do weird things, are you?" Ryou said.

Malik's only answer was a mysterious smile. "Maybe, maybe not…"

Ryou groaned. "Be careful, will you?"

"You don't think I'd just wave that thing in his face do you?" Malik said indignantly.

"No," Ryou said. "Just be careful, will you?"

Malik rolled his eyes. "Okay, sure."

"Guys, we're here," Harry said suddenly. They all jerked to a stop in front of Snape's office door.

"Well, see you guys later," Malik said, and continued down the hall to the Slytherin common room. The rest of the group entered the dungeons.

"Well, well, well…you actually got here early for once," Snape sneered. "Well done."

Hermione was muttering, "Don't say anything, don't say anything, don't say anything…" to Kaiba, who looked like he was going to throttle Snape. She was definitely talking to the wrong person.

"Is he _always_ like this, or is he just in a really foul mood?" Yugi said to Harry, just a little bit louder than he should have. Snape ended up hearing him.

"And you need to learn some manners," he said, rounding on Yugi. Yami, angered at the insult to his aibou, took over.

"And _you _need to wash your hair," Yami said, crossing his arms.

~~Hmm. I'd like to see how this goes.~~

~I don't think Yami made the right choice in saying that…Snape looks ready to explode.~

"What did you say?" Snape said in a dangerously quiet voice. 

"I _said_, you need to wash your hair! It looks like someone poured oil over it or something!" Yami repeated, smirking.

"Well, you shouldn't be talking, spiky-hair!" Snape retorted.

/Yami, no! What are you doing that for?!/

//I'm just getting back at him for him insulting you! Is there something wrong with that?//

Yugi groaned. /YES!/

"I like my hair, thank you very much, but I don't know how you can even stand having hair like that!" Yami said. 

Snape stiffened. "You, come with me," he said in an angry voice, pointing at Yami. "The rest of you are dismissed."

Everyone looked at each other in surprise and backed out of the room, except Ryou, because Bakura had taken over.

"Actually, you do need to wash your hair," Bakura said in an amused voice. "When's the last time you took a shower? I mean, it's not like they don't have showers here, do they?"

~Yami! WHAT ARE YOU DOING?!~

~~This is getting interesting, and I want to see what happens to the pharaoh.~~

~All right, but if I get expelled for insulting a teacher, I'm blaming it on you!~

~~Fine.~~

Snape turned slowly. "You," he said. "Come with me too." He swept out of the room, beckoning them to follow.

Both of them did, but not quietly. They were shouting insults at each other in Ancient Egyptian the whole way down the hall, making some heads poke out of their classroom doors to see what was going on.

They did shut up, however, when Snape's destination turned out to be Dumbledore's office.

"Oh crap. I am _not_ going in there," Bakura said.

Snape turned. "Yes you are."

"I am not," Bakura said, and switched back with Ryou. Snape did a double take at the slight change in looks.

~Yami? What did you just get me into?~

~~Uh…well…you have to go into Dumbledore's office now…because…I insulted that greasy-haired man…~~

Ryou groaned and turned to Yami.

"Yugi…" he said, tilting his head towards the Puzzle.

"Hmph," Yami said. He glared at Snape and switched back with Yugi. Snape just stared.

"Oh boy," Yugi said when he saw Dumbledore's door.

/YAMI!!!!!!!!/

//Uh…sorry?//

/Hmph./

"We are so in trouble," Yugi mumbled to Ryou as Snape knocked on the door.


	11. Say Hello

Author's Notes: The last time I updated was AUGUST?? **O.O**;; Ehh…umm…please don't kill me? I must've lost like all of my reviewers…

And I have _way_ too many reviewers to thank, so I'll put that at the end. Meep.

Beware possible OOCness ahead. Or just Yami and Bakura acting unusually childish.

I also think my writing is deteriorating. Maybe it's just because I'm too distracted right now. I'll do a final revision of this chapter later. @.@

Disclaimer: Don't own YuGiOh. 

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New Author's Notes: Guess what? There are none! XD I only fixed about one line! Couldn't really find anything wrong with this chapter, other than the utter lack of plot development, but I can't fix that unless I rewrite the whole thing. And I rather like this chapter, too…

Chapter 11

Say Hello

The door creaked open slowly. As Snape ushered the two of them inside, Ryou suddenly thought of an image of the two of them walking down the path to an executioner. _Is it just me, or do I sense impending doom?_ Ryou wondered.

~~Don't worry, you're not alone.~~

~Glad to hear it,~ Ryou said dryly. ~It makes me feel so safe.~

~~You're welcome.~~

"Ah, Severus. Do you have a question for me?" Dumbledore inquired, looking curiously at the two students and the seething Snape.

"These two insulted me during their detention," Snape said furiously. "I demand that they be punished suitably."

Dumbledore raised an eyebrow. "Ah, this may be true. But are you sure that it is them who did it?"

"Please explain," Snape bit out.

Dumbledore sighed and stood. "If I may ask Yami and Bakura to come out again?" he asked Ryou and Yugi.

/You heard him, Yami. Get out here./

//But…but…//

/Yamiii…or I'll set the puppy dog eyes on you…/

//Fine! Fine! I'll come out!//

With a flash of light, Yami appeared next to Yugi and scowled at him. "No fair. One of these days, I'll become immune to those eyes, and then I'll see what you do after _that_."

"Then I'll just invent some new ones!" Yugi chirped. "Besides, who said they had to be _puppy dog_ eyes? I mean, they could be fish eyes…"

Yami grumbled something inappropriate under his breath. "Scary, aibou. Just don't do it."

"It's a lose-lose situation, Pharaoh," Bakura chuckled, materializing next to Ryou.

Yami just grumbled some more.

Dumbledore cleared his throat to get their attention. "Now, which of you insulted Snape?" he asked.

"Not telling," Yami and Bakura said at the same time, crossing their arms.

"Hey!" Yami cried. "You copied me!"

"Did not!"

"Did too!"

"Did not!"

"Did too!"

"Did not!"

"Did not!"

"Did too!"

"Ha!" Yami crowed, pointing at Bakura. "You admitted that you copied me! Reverse psychology is a very nice thing indeed…"

"But you had to say that I didn't copy you for me to say that I did copy you, so there!"

Ryou sighed.

"They can be so childish at times, can't they," Yugi said, noticing.

"They're worse than little kids," Ryou agreed.

"Hey!" Yami and Bakura screamed simultaneously, then glared daggers at each other.

"Hmph," Yami muttered. "Stop copying me!"

"Say 'please' first," Bakura told him.

Dumbledore sighed impatiently. "We do not have time for this," he told them. "Which of you insulted Snape?"

Yugi and Ryou pointed to Yami and Bakura. Yami and Bakura pointed to Yugi and Ryou.

"Where did those two come from?" Snape demanded, pointing at Yami and Bakura. "Who are they?"

"Those two are Yami and Bakura, and they came from the Millennium Items around Yugi and Ryou's necks," Dumbledore explained.

"How-?"

Dumbledore sighed and began to explain about the Millennium Items. Halfway through his explanation, however, a large vase sailed past Snape's head and crashed against a wall.

"Bakura!" Ryou sighed. "Did you know that we actually have to _pay_ for things we break here? It might not have been that way in Ancient Egypt, but this _isn't Ancient Egypt_! And I don't have all that much money!"

"The pharaoh was _annoying_ me!" Bakura complained. "Tell him to shut up and grow up!"

"Tell him yourself," Ryou snapped irritably. "I'm sorry, Professor Dumbledore. I'll pay for that."

"No need," Dumbledore said, looking rather weary. "_Reparo_."

The vase pieced itself back together. With a wave of his wand, Dumbledore sent the vase back to where it was before.

"It wouldn't have _broken_ in the first place if the stupid pharaoh hadn't _dodged_ it," Bakura scowled.

"What, you expected me to just stand there and let it crash into my head?" Yami asked incredulously.

"YES!"

"I'm not that stupid!"

"Yes you are!"

"No I'm not!"

"Yes you are!"

"No I'm-"

"Be…_quiet_!" Yugi screamed. "Dumbledore's trying to _talk_!"

Dumbledore sighed. "Thank you, Yugi. As I was saying…"

"What's this about Ancient Egypt?" Snape asked, sounding a bit interested.

"I was getting to that. Apparently these two reside within the Millennium Items that Yugi and Ryou possess, and are actually the spirits of an Ancient Egyptian pharaoh and a tomb robber. For your information, Yugi holds the Millennium Puzzle, and Ryou holds the Millennium Ring."

"Interesting," Snape said. "Are they dangerous in any way?"

"Very," Yugi said.

Snape sighed.

"If you have a living animal of some kind, Yami could demonstrate his Mind Crush for you," Yugi suggested.

Snape waved his wand and a dove appeared out of nowhere. (I have nothing against doves! It was just the first thing that came to mind!)

"Let's see what he can do," Snape said.

Yami thrust out a hand at the dove, which began to flap its wings nervously. "MIND CRUSH!"

The bird crystallized and then broke apart, a pile of dust settling onto the carpet. Yami scratched his head. "Uhh…I guess I overdid it a bit…"

Bakura raised an eyebrow. Snape was open-mouthed and was rapidly turning ashen.

"But the fact remains that these two insulted you, Severus. You may punish them accordingly, but you may want to watch what you, erm, do…" Dumbledore said quietly, gazing at the remnants of the dove.

"Damn right," Bakura said.

Ryou groaned. "Language, Bakura…it's one thing mentally, but it's another out loud…"

"Whoops," Bakura said, not sounding sorry at all. "Can we go yet?"

"I want you to apologize to Severus," Dumbledore said. "Then you may go, after he issues his punishment."

"Hey, how do you know it was us anyway? It could've been _them_!" Bakura complained, waving his hand at Yugi and Ryou.

Dumbledore smiled benignly, eyes twinkling. "I have my ways…"

Yami and Bakura both groaned.

"Well?" Dumbledore asked. "We don't have all day."

"Sorry," both of them muttered.

"That will do for now," Dumbledore said. "Severus?"

"Detention tomorrow afternoon at four," Snape said testily. "You may leave."

"And I thought my Mind Crush would get us off the hook," Yami sighed.

"So you overdid it on purpose?"

"Basically, yes…"

"I should've known you'd try something," Bakura muttered.

With that friendly parting statement, both of them vanished back into their soul rooms and Yugi and Ryou both left the room, relieved that nothing worse had happened to them.

~_You_ are going to be in control during the detention,~ Ryou informed Bakura.

Bakura grumbled.

~Don't give me that. You were the one who said, 'I want to see what happens to the Pharaoh', after all. And we're lucky we didn't get suspended, and we only got one detention!~

~~Okay, okay. No need to harp on about it. Besides, if he had given us more than one detention, I would've taken care of him for good.~~

~Don't you dare try anything,~ Ryou threatened. ~It's still too early in the school year for a soulless teacher's body to be lying around in the middle of the corridors.~

~~Does this mean that I can leave a soulless teacher's body lying around in the middle of the corridors later on in the year?~~

~It means nothing of the sort.~

"Hey, what's up with Malfoy?" Yugi inquired, looking at the crowd of laughing Gryffindors who were watching Malfoy tap dance across the hallway. "I…don't think he's doing that of his own free will…"

"Malik," Ryou said simply. "There's no other explanation."

"Hey," Malik grinned, meeting them halfway down the corridor. Ryou noticed that he never let go of the Millennium Rod.

"Let me guess, that's your doing, right?" Yugi asked, pointing at Malfoy.

"Of course," Malik said. "Who else would be able to make Malfoy tap dance? Let me assure you, it was pretty difficult. I don't think he knew how to tap dance before I had to…forcibly teach him…"

Ryou and Yugi winced.

"Nothing physical, unfortunately," Malik said hastily. "Though he still learned pretty fast. I think he thought that I would suck out his soul or something. No matter how much I want to, I think I'd have more fun torturing him slowly over the course of the entire school year than ending things so soon. So what happened with Snape?"

"Dumbledore explained the whole Millennium Item thing to Snape," Ryou said. "I guess we'll be safe from general animosity until Snape becomes convinced that they can't hurt him. Yami put up a pretty good show in there. I think he's scared of us."

"What'd he do in there?" Malik asked, interested.

"He used Mind Crush on a dove and smashed it to bits of dust," Yugi said. "Let's not talk about that anymore…the sight was rather disturbing…"

"Did Dumbledore mention anything about my yami?" Malik asked casually.

"Nope. I doubt he even knows about him yet, seeing as how you didn't tell him anything," Ryou said. "He probably thinks that you're just a harmless, normal student."

Yugi made a sound of disbelief. "He couldn't be further from the truth," he said dryly.

Ryou and Malik both laughed. "Well, I guess we should go find Joey and Kaiba…" Ryou trailed off, eyes drawn to Malfoy's dancing again.

Malik shrugged. "I don't know, watching Malik tap dance is less boring. Maybe I could teach him the waltz and make him dance with Goyle…"

Yugi snorted. Ryou rolled his eyes.

~~Actually sounds kind of amusing. Tell Malik that I'd gladly help him with the teach-~~

~AHEM. What were you saying?~

~~Ehh…~~

Snape passed them from the direction of Dumbledore's office. It seemed as if he had stayed to talk longer with Dumbledore after the two of them had left. All they got was a frigid blast of arctic air as he brushed by the trio. He even ignored Malik.

"Umm…" Yugi blinked at Snape's retreating back. "I don't think he took it very well…"

"Well, what did you expect? Being possessed by Ancient Egyptian spirits able to crush living matter into dust is not exactly normal…or safe…"

~~Possess? That's a bit negative, Ryou…~~

"He'll get over it," Ryou continued.

"Are you sure?" Yugi worried.

"Well, our friends did, eventually," Ryou shrugged. "But they knew him. I don't know how he's going to take it though."

"Let's forget about this for a while," Malik interrupted. "Let's go find Joey and Kaiba, or we could teach Malfoy the waltz and find him a partner, like I was saying before…"

~~Sounds like a plan to me.~~

Argh. Shortness. SHORT. Too short…sorry. I've been feeling in a very weird mood lately. Both the latest chapters of Infiltration and this fic have been humor-based. The next chapter will probably be much longer, and will probably be more serious. .

I really have no clue what's going to happen in the next chapter. I seem to have lost track of the plot. Should I do more lessons, or should I skip ahead to Halloween? I've done most of the interesting classes already, so…maybe Care of Magical Creatures?

Chapters 1-2 are revised, if you haven't read the new versions I suggest you read them now.

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I will be taking Tea and Mai out of the fic. If anyone has a problem with this, you can email me, but generally I don't see why they should be there. They don't add to the plot in any way whatsoever, not to mention they were annoying me and I don't think you guys liked having them there very much. So it'll be a mass revision of the chapters. -_- Now if only I can get around to it… 

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Review Credit: simpleinsanity, just joey, It'sHardToBelieve, ruth 4 kai, Chibi-claire, blank, Curtis Zidane Ziraa, Maruken, manga-nut, vanishingact, somecrazyperson, Hollidae, Bloodfang, Demons of Hatred, Alaena Flame Dragonstar, Destiny's Dragon, evil-bakura20032001, Eternal Dreamer, M8, bakurakrazie, DHASN, Dragona 2007, RBMIfan, Jay Kamiya, Amanda, crystal-chan, JJ6, Lyn/Lin, Shadow of Life, yesim@*@k@*m@liklover, **Evergladelord, Dark-necrophhia666, …, Youkai Youko, Istari of Starbright AstronomyTower, Sakura Marcom, Hikaru, dark_angel5211, DJ master :), and Sarah.** Now if I did the reviews for Chapter 9 as well, I think I would faint. I don't even _want_ to count anymore…

Review Responses:

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Sarah: Then I think I should start expecting those rabid donkeys soon. O.O;; 

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simpleinsanity: You found out. ^.~ Hope you liked.

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Maruken: Okay, now I know why you didn't like Yami. . But I still like him. That's okay though, right? Thanks for the info!

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manga-nut: I must not have really been paying close attention. @.@ Haven't heard anything like that before. Do you know which episode number it was? If you do, could you please tell me? Thanks!

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just joey: Thanks, multiple reviews really help me finish a chapter. ^.^

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…: Yeah, I was thinking that. I'm taking Tea and Mai out, but I think Joey's going to stay. We'll see how it goes. Your logic is very, very right…

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Istari of Starbright AstronomyTower: Sorry, nope. If I knew where to get a real one, the store would be sold out by now. ^.^;;

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Hikaru: Meep. This is _waaaaaaaaaay_ off of a week…sorry!

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DJ master :): Eh, whenever I try to type the face at the end of your pen name on Microsoft Word, it automatically turns into a weird smiley face. @.@ o.O;; But what don't you understand? *blink* I can explain it to you, but do you not understand the plot or something else?

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To everyone else: THANK YOU!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! *super glomps*

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New Author's Notes (more): Well, I'm now balancing three HP/YGO fics at once, so it might take me a while to update for all of them. The other two are Infiltration and Enter the Shadow Realm, so please go check them out! (is shamelessly advertising) ^_^ Thanks! 

Review please! (though I probably don't deserve it this time .;;) 


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